Faster Than Light
by snickermoon814
Summary: He was an infamous thief, wanted across the galaxy. She was an up-and-coming officer in the Federation, fiercely loyal to her home planet. They shouldn't work together in any sense and yet somehow, they do. Nalu AU. Cover image by sarara1.8
1. A Wanted Man

If asked what she thought of her life, Lucy Heartfillia would say that she had a pretty darn good life and didn't need any self-help pamphlets, thank you very much. No, she didn't want a promotion. No, she didn't want a boyfriend. Yes, she wanted you to stop asking questions.

Lucy grew up as an only child in a prestigious family on the planet Magnolia in the Fiore star system. A gorgeous blond with chocolate-brown eyes and a doll-like figure, she never wanted anything in life, be it looks or food or money. She was nice enough, always willing to provide aid to someone in need, and tried to be polite to everyone around her, even if they weren't. Often, as a child, she would gaze up at the stars from her bed and dream about what was up there, about new worlds and people to be discovered. There was so much more in the sky then her little home on her little planet. And so, when she was fifteen, she decided that she would be the first Heartfillia to leave her solar system and travel to worlds beyond.

Sadly, this decision was met with poor reception by her family. She was nobility, prepped and primed to take over her father's business and control the family fortune, not be gallivanting about the galaxy.

"You are a Heartfillia," she was told with haughty sniffs. "You will perform the duties expected of someone of your station, no more and no less. Abandon this foolish dream and focus on what's actually important. And besides," nasty sneers would add, "even if you were to attempt to graduate from the Academy, you would never succeed. You have neither the temperament nor the fortitude. You would come crying and sniveling back in the first month." Lucy accepted these words silently, and when she was sixteen, enrolled anyway.

The Federation Academy, commonly referred to as FA, was a brutal six year experience on Magnolia's moon, Hargeon. The higher-ups of the school were unimpressed by her exalted background and worked her to the bone. There were many a time where she could be found sobbing in a deserted classroom, overwhelmed by the sheer amount of work and pressure on her, but she would always pick herself up and attack her studies with renewed vigor. She had promised herself that she would fly among the stars, and a few letter grades, evaluations, or condescending words weren't going to stop her.

In the end, this determination aided her greatly in her efforts, and she graduated the Academy at the age of twenty-two with top grades. With a blinding smile and a letter of accreditation Lucy came home and cheerfully informed her dumbfounded family that she had been assigned as a cadet to the starship _Zodiac_ the following month.

The words of congratulations were lukewarm at best.

Lucy didn't care.

One month later she had stood at FA's starbase on Hargeon with the few possessions she had chosen to take with her, and beamed aboard her new ship. The _Zodiac_ was a fairly spacious ship, an A-class scout vessel with approximately 400 crewmembers and an excellent reputation. The blond cadet wasn't sure what to expect from her new ship, but she had been determined to go with the flow and work with whatever hand Fate dealt her.

The captain was a stern, older man with an impossibly long mustache that everyone simply called "Captain King." At first Lucy was unsure if that was within regulations, but was informed that the crew didn't need to call him anything else—he was their king, and that was all they needed. He was kind enough to his crew and was a hit at the parties, but was coldly unforgiving in regards to rule-breaking and his punishments brutal and harsh. It made sense for it to be that way though, so far away in space with so much riding on them, so Lucy raised no objections.

Lieutenant Commander Leo, the first officer, was flamboyant young man with fluffy orange hair that stuck up like cat ears and blue-tinted glasses. He was also a complete womanizer, flirting with Lucy on her first visit to the bridge of the ship and rendering her flustered to the point of inarticulacy. He would often times behave in ridiculous and silly manners, especially around women, but was completely devoted to his duties and was a cold and brilliant commander when it came down to it.

Then there were the other major crewmembers: chief engineer Commander Scorpio with his not-so-secret crush on the beautiful and ferocious Doctor Aquarius, whose timid assistant Aries was thoroughly smitten with their serial flirt of a first officer. Lieutenant Commander Capricorn was the stoic and unflappable head of security who often had to smack his subordinate Lieutenant Taurus over the head for being too excited about his job. Lucy got along especially well with the ship's counselor Virgo as well as the barber Cancer.

Over the next three years she made friends with her fellow shipmates. Sharing her deck were the curious Gemini twins who had an odd habit of mimicking other people's voices and creeping them out, a mother and son who were always referred to by their last names, Pisces, Libra, an engineer in charge of weapons calibration, and Lieutenant Sagittarius, the ship's weapons officer.

Lucy started out as a mere cadet assigned to secretarial duties, but was quickly moved up in rank once her superiors saw her efficiency. Within one year she had been promoted to ensign, and by the end of her second year was working as assistant Communications Officer on the bridge. By the time her third year came around, the previous Communications Officer and retired and she had replaced him as Lieutenant Heartfillia of the _Zodiac_.

All in all, she would say to herself, she had a pretty good life. She loved the adventure of soaring among the stars, meeting new races and seeing new worlds, some never explored by man before. She was as happy as anyone could be.

And if she sometimes felt a nagging feeling in her heart telling her that something was missing, she brushed it off as fatigue. However, one day and a chance encounter with a wanted man changed that forever.

The _Zodiac_ was passing through the Alvarez solar system on a diplomatic mission to a small moon outpost on the edge of Alvarez's solar system. There had been rumors of a massive civil war going on in that region, and the moon colony was supposedly unaligned with either side of the conflict. Lucy's ship was supposed to assess the situation from a reasonably safe distance without attracting any undue attention.

They had arrived in orbit of the moon earlier that day (or as close as one could classify it in deep space) and Lucy was off duty for some time. Humming cheerfully to herself, she made her way down to her quarters, eager to whip up a steaming mug of hot chocolate and relax with a good book. On her way, she bumped into Libra, who wore a stormy scowl on her pretty face.

"Hey, what's the matter?" Lucy asked.

Libra tutted in disgust. "Something's wrong with this deck's food replicators," she growled. "It won't make a decent cheese sandwich without adding burnt pickles and sour cream and onion ice cream on top."

Lucy grimaced. "That's revolting."

"Tell me about it. And because of this whole sneaky mission we've got going on, nobody can spare the time to come down here and take a look at it."

"At all?"

Libra shook her head. "Nope. Not 'till negotiations are done, anyway. I hope you like burnt pickles, Luce." She sighed, and walked away.

Dismayed, Lucy darted into her quarters and punched in the order for hot chocolate into her food replicator anyway. With an atypical sizzling noise, a cracked mug stuffed with what appeared to be fried grasshoppers embedded in lemon-flavored marshmallows materialized in the slot. Gagging, Lucy gingerly tossed the mug into the garbage receptacle and slumped on her bed dejectedly. She had been really looking forward to that hot chocolate.

She pursed her lips, thinking. She had taken basic mechanical engineering at the Academy and was fairly good at it. Granted, it had been a while since she had attempted to repair anything as complex as a food replicator, but she figured that with a little trial and error she could get it eventually.

Pleased with her decision, she grabbed her empty personalized bag and headed up to Cargo Bay 5 where the basic repair kits were kept.

With remarkable speed and precision, Lucy typed in the password to the bay and marched in. The lights in the large room were dimmed, but it was enough to see by. She strode over to the nearest supply bin and began rummaging through it, looking for the right equipment.

Suddenly, a loud clang rang out across the room. Lucy whipped around to see the lid to one of the supply bins roll to a halt by the door.

"Hello?" she called out cautiously. She hadn't thought there was anyone in here.

There was no reply. Her hand slowly itched towards the phaser she had strapped to her side. Maybe she was overreacting because of the tension on board as a result of the mission, but any member of her crew would have responded to her call.

"Computer," she said softly, addressing the automated system that ran the _Zodiac,_ "is there anyone else in the room with me?"

"There is one other life form in Cargo Bay 5," it answered its usual cool monotone.

A drop of sweat trickled down her neck. If the other person had been a member of the crew, the computer would have said so. And while Lucy did take the required self-defense classes in her days at the Academy, she was incredibly rusty and had no idea what she was up against. Swallowing heavily, she steeled herself and slapped the communications badge on her uniform's chest and said quickly, "Security to Cargo B—"

"Wait!" A loud male voice cut her off, and a hand roughly slapped her arm away from her chest. "Don't do that!"

Lucy shrieked and instinctively kicked out, her boot connecting with her attacker's stomach. The man let out an agonized _"Oof!"_ and fell to his knees. Rolling away from her, he clutched his abdomen in acute distress. Panicked, Lucy bolted for the door.

"Wait, wait," the man on the floor rasped. "Don't call security, they'll lock me up!"

Lucy was so astonished by this remark that she actually pulled up short and gave the man a scathing look.

"That's the _point,_ idiot!" she hissed. "I don't know who you are, and I'll feel a lot better once you're behind a containment field."

"Please," he begged, still gasping for breath. "Just gimme a minute to explain myself."

Lucy glared suspiciously at the man's hunched form. "Sixty seconds," she snapped. "Computer, raise lighting to normal."

The light brightened, illuminating the man who was rising unsteadily to his feet. He had salmon-colored messy hair that brushed the top of a white scale-patterned scarf wound round his neck. He wore a sleeveless, gold trimmed, black waistcoat left open and untucked, exposing his lean bare chest. A gold trimmed black cloth around his waist reached his knees, held by a leather brown belt with an oval-shaped silver buckle. It hung over white knee-length trousers, and he wore a thick black wristband on his left wrist and black open-toed sandals.

Lucy blinked. Without thinking, she asked, "What kind of outfit is that?"

Surprised, he glanced down at himself. "A cool one."

"On what planet?"

"Mine." He tilted his head. "Is it normal for you people to interrogate thieves about their clothing?"

"No, I'm just used to a uniform and that—did you say _thief?_ "

He gave her a broad grin. "Yup."

"Where you robbing my ship, thief?" she asked icily.

He nodded, oblivious to her ire. "Yeah, a little bit—" he squinted at the name tag on the bag still slung over her shoulder. "—Lieutenant Lucy Heartfillia. Nice name."

"I—you can't—" she spluttered, her irritation rising."Don't just stand there grinning like an idiot when you just confessed to stealing from my ship!"

"What's wrong with that?"

Lucy felt herself growing apoplectic with disbelief. She raised her hand over her badge threateningly. "Twenty seconds."

"Hey, that's no fair," he complained. "You were talking to me."

"Fifteen seconds."

"Fine, fine! My name's Natsu and I wasn't stealing—okay I was, but not a lot, I just needed to resupply my own ship. I can't go to any outposts nearby to restock so I just thought I'd borrow from you. I'll pay you back if you just lemme go!"

She raised an eyebrow. "Your ship, huh? And just where is this magical ship of yours? There were no other vessels detected in this area."

Natsu gave her a smug look. "Cloaking device."

Once again, Lucy felt the anger drain out of her as her curiosity was piqued at his remark. "You have a cloaking device? Those are really rare."

He shrugged. "I needed one. I mean, it's pretty hard to go around stealing effectively if every ship with a halfway decent sensor can detect me from lightyears away."

"But how did you get one in the first place? They're supposed to be almost impossible to come by, and cost almost as much as the ship itself."

"Thief, remember?"

She blushed. _Actually, I did forget for a second there... He seems like way too much of an idiot to be anything but the star of a comedy routine._

Natsu smiled at her again. "Hey, you're pretty cute when you go all red like that."

Her blushed deepened. "Is that how you get away with stealing?" she demanded furiously. "You flirt and charm your way out?"

He stared blankly at her. "Huh? Flirt?"

Lucy gaped at him. "There's no way you're that clueless."

"What am I supposed to have a clue about?"

Her eye twitched. "Time's up. I'm calling security now."

"No wait, please, I hate getting caught," he pleaded. "Escaping is such a pain; please don't tell on me, I'll be good!"

"'Tell on you?'" Lucy repeated, amused. "What are you, four?"

"They don't arrest four year olds, right? Then yeah, sounds good to me."

Losing her patience, the blond officer flung her hands into the air in despair. "How in the world are you a successful thief? You're practically braindead!"

"My brain's not dead," he mumbled, rubbing his head with his knuckles. "At least, I don't think it is."

"Oh, I'm pretty sure it is."

His eyes lit up. "That's pretty cool then—I mean, would that make me some kind of zombie? Am I gonna start eating brains soon?"

"Only mine as it oozes out of my ears from your stupidity," she muttered waspishly. "I'm beginning to doubt your authenticity as a thief."

"Whaddaya mean? Of course I'm a real thief."

"Then this has got to be your first heist. People with your level of air-headedness don't become successful criminals."

His brow furrowed. "Hey, I'll have you know I've been doing this for years. I've actually made quite a name for myself."

"Says the man who claims he's four years old and is a brain eating zombie," she scoffed. "Come on, it's not like you're one of those bigshot pirates like Gray Fullbuster or Natsu Drag…neel…" Her voice trailed off. "No way. You're not—there's no way—you're not _the_ Nastu Dragneel, are you? Of the Fairy Tail thieves' guild? The one who's wanted throughout practically the entire galaxy?"

The idiotic thief before her grinned and ruffled his hair. "Yep, that's me," he said proudly.

She stared at him. "You're pulling my leg."

"I'm not touching you," he said in confusion.

"I know that! It's an expression!"

"Oh. Whatever." He shrugged. "You say weird things, Luigi."

"I'm Lucy," she said acidly. "And if you are who you say you are, then I am definitely turning you in, right here, right now."

"But why?" he protested. "I thought you liked me."

She glared at him furiously. "I didn't turn you in immediately because I took pity on a thick-headed fool who blundered onto my ship. But regardless of your brain capacity, you are still a greatly wanted man with a huge bounty on your head. So yes, I'm turning you in." Thrown off by the pink-haired thief's dense personality, she made the mistake of turning her back on him and heading for the door.

Suddenly, a strong arm wrapped around her throat and another grabbed her hands. "Sorry," Natsu breathed into her ear. "You're funny and all, but I can't let you turn me in." Lucy yelled and tried to twist out of his grasp, but to no avail.

"Geez, you're not making this easy—" he grunted, trying to hold her down.

" _It's not supposed to be easy!"_ Lucy screamed, lashing out with her foot. However, Natsu had learned from the first time and blocked the kick with his own leg. He yanked her arm and pulled her down, pinning her to the floor. She twisted violently, trying to grab the phaser by her side, but Natsu knocked it out of her hand and it skidded away across the floor. She jerked her head up in an attempt to hit his head, but missed and hit his shoulder instead. He pulled back and Lucy bit at his wrist. Natsu yelped but kept a firm hold on her hands and neck.

"Just calm down—"

"I WILL NOT CALM DOWN!"

"I'll be gone in a few seconds—"

"You need to be gone now, _get off of me—"_

"Look, if you don't stop fighting my transporter's gonna kick in and we'll both be—"

"I—don't—care—"

"Stop! Now!" he yelled in panic, but it was too late. Lucy felt the tingling in her body that accompanied being beamed to a location by a transporter. The world shimmered and blinked out of existence for a moment before reforming in a cramped, dingy room.

Natsu immediately leapt off her, ran to the piloting seat at the front of the room and began furiously typing commands into the control panel. Lucy sat up more slowly and took in her surroundings. They had materialized in a tiny vessel that appeared to be a cargo ship with barely more than one room and a bathroom. The interior was a disaster; trash, dirty clothes and dishes were strewn about the place, and a stale odor permeated the room.

"Where is this?" Lucy asked tremulously. She turned to face the fluently cursing thief. "Hey, where are we?" He didn't reply but added a few more expletives under his breath. Smacking the dashboard, he darted over to another panel and hit a key. The ship thrummed to life beneath their feet, and Lucy looked out the window in time to see the _Zodiac_ orbiting by them before the stars elongated and they entered warp drive.

Stunned, Lucy slumped over onto the floor. "That was…that was my ship," she stammered. "We just warped away…from my ship."

"Yeah, sorry about that, Luffy," Natsu said, spinning around in his chair to face her. "I tried to tell you my transporter was set on a timer, but you wouldn't listen."

"My name is Lucy," she replied dully. "And you just kidnapped me."

"Looks like it," he said cheerfully. "So how 'bout it, Lucy? You ready to be a star thief?"

Lucy buried her face in her hands and groaned.

 _All I wanted was a cup of hot chocolate._

Apparently Fate had other ideas.

* * *

 **A/N: Thanks for reading! So, this story is going to be a bizarre combination of Star Trek and Faster Than Light elements, and Fairy Tail. We'll see how this goes, huh?**

 **Please review, I really want to know what you all think.**


	2. Pirates Ahoy!

**A/N: Thank you so much for all the favorites, follows, and reviews! I'm touched to see how much support this story has. I hope you'll enjoy the ride.**

 **One thing: Some of you may have noticed that I changed the title of this story. It was originally going to have some kind of ridiculous storyline about actually stealing a star, but I did some re-thinking and realized how utterly stupid that was. So, Faster than Light it is, and I'm not changing it again. Sorry for the confusion.**

 **Now, without further ado~**

* * *

For a while, all Lucy could do was sit there in shock in the place she'd materialized. All of her hopes and dreams, years of hard work and dedication and derision, friendships, ambition—all down the drain in a matter of mere moments. It seemed as if all her extremities had gone numb. She was a jellyfish, with no brain and drained of all vitality; it was all she could do to sit upright. But that mindset didn't persist for long, and the old Lucy came raging back to the surface.

She turned to Natsu and pointed back in the direction they'd last seen her ship. "Take me back," she demanded.

"Back there?" He looked at her as if she'd crawled out of an insane asylum. "Psh, hell no. I don't want to die."

"I don't care," she growled. "Take me back. Now."

He shook his head adamantly. "I can't do that."

" _I don't care!"_ she screamed again. _"Do it!"_

He looked taken aback at her outburst. "Why do you wanna go back so badly?"

"Why? Because my entire _life_ is back there, you bastard! Everything I have, everything I want is back on that ship we just warped away from. I don't care about turning you in that this point—I just want to go home."

For the first time, he didn't meet her pleading gaze. "I can't."

To her embarrassment, tears began to pool in her eyes. "Are you that cruel that you would take my life away from me?"

His eyes snapped back up to hers. "No, that's not it! I would take you back, I really would. It's just…" he swallowed guiltily. "I _can't._ This ship's engines aren't advanced enough to handle two warp jumps in a day. They're not even supposed to be able to do even one—I had manually install a makeshift warp core into them to achieve even this."

Lucy's hand fell limply to her lap. "You're flying a piece of junk that can't even handle a warp jump? How have you even made it this far?"

"Well, it actually can warp, it just requires twelve hours to cool down and another three to charge back up. It's honestly a pretty huge improvement—when I first installed it I had to wait three days between each jump."

"Fifteen hours…" Her eyes widened. "Wait, but by then the mission will be over! My ship will be gone!"

"I'm sorry," he mumbled. "I didn't mean to take you with. I just wanted to stop you from raising the alarm."

Lucy inhaled deeply, massaging her temples. She supposed he was telling the truth; he _had_ been yelling at her to stop moving and something about a transporter, but she hadn't been listening, being more focused on seemingly fighting for her life at the time. But if he was telling the truth, then there was nothing she could do about her situation now. She was, for better or worse, stuck with the thief before her now.

"Fine," she sighed. "I'll tell you what: I'll tag along with you for a while. But at the first opportunity we have, you're returning me to the Federation, got it?"

"Really?" he said. "That's awesome! Now I've already got a crewmember!"

"Hey, don't get so excited now," she warned. "I'm only going to be here for a little while."

"Who cares? Now I don't have to talk to my socks and do everything myself."

Lucy glanced around at the filthy ship. "Speaking of being here, we need to get some things straight. First off, there is no way in the nine circles of hell that I'm living in a ship as gross as this."

"Sorry," he said, scratching his head. "I'm not too good with keeping things clean. Never have been."

"Well, you're going to _get_ good. Fast. The fact that I can still smell this stuff even with air ventilation horrifies me beyond belief."

"Sorry," he muttered again.

They spent the next half hour sorting through the various piles of clothes, dishes, and garbage scattered haphazardly across the tiny ship. Lucy ended up throwing out most of his clothing as they were so filthy, shredded, and stained that no amount of laundering would be able to save them. She took great pleasure in tossing out the spoiling food and mold-encrusted dishes, but Natsu refused to let her throw out the random bag of cat food in the corner or the bits of broken machinery. "I need them," was all he would reply when she asked.

The bathroom was also a bit of a mess, but not nearly as bad as she'd feared. At least both the toilet and the shower were operable, and he had a decent supply of toilet paper stocked up. And while there was a toothbrush, she couldn't locate any form of toothpaste or mouthwash in the whole ship. There was also a notable lack of towels aside from the one threadbare scrap hung carelessly over the shower panel. It occurred to her that she was going to need to acquire some toiletries as well as feminine products, but she shelved that in the back of her mind, vowing to deal with it later. She still had to focus on basic things like survival.

After wiping down the counter in the bathroom taking out the trash Lucy came back into the main cabin, wiping her forehead.

"Thank goodness that's basically over," she huffed in relief. "How in the world have you managed to gain your kind of reputation in this run-down tin can?"

Natsu looked up from a maintenance panel. "I didn't always have this ship, y'know. I used to have a really great one, a big Zoltan explorer. Aah, that thing was nice." He sighed nostalgically and grinned at her. "Had a really great entertainment system."

She flung herself into the navigation seat. "What happened to it?"

"I lost it when I tried to steal a Federation cruiser."

"You WHAT?"

"I had a bet with Gray: whichever one of us could get a Federation cruiser first would be able to order the other one around for a month." He hung his head dejectedly. "I didn't realize that they were having some kind of Admiral's convention, so they'd nearly quadrupled the security to impress 'em."

Lucy whistled slowly. "Wow. Talk about bad timing. So they caught you?"

"Yup. Warped in, all ready and rarin' to go, and the next thing I knew I was surrounded by five battleships, had my engines hacked, and was caught in a tractor beam. It was pretty embarrassing how easily they got me, even with all that extra security."

"Don't feel too bad. The Federation's known throughout the galaxy for its security. You'd have had no chance at all if the Admirals' ships were there."

"I knew that, but I still thought I could pull it off. I'd done crazier things before, or at least I'd thought I had." He shrugged. "I guess I got cocky."

"So they captured you, right? How did you escape?"

"Honestly? I got lucky. The loser guarding my cell was a greedy pig. I told him that I'd give him all the treasure I had in the secret compartment in my ship, but he had to let me out to show him. Idiot actually did, but his superiors knew he was flake and kept an eye on him. They'd known he'd let me out from the start and were ready. The only reason I got out at all was because of Happy."

"Happy?"

"My best friend. He bravely took the fall for me, holding our pursuers off and giving me time to escape to a cargo ship they had listed for scrap. Oh Happy, I've never had a friend like you," he added, his eyes shining with unshed tears.

Lucy bit her lip. _That's actually pretty sweet, that he had such a good friend,_ she thought. She opened her mouth to say something comforting, but nearly bit her tongue off when Natsu leaped from the floor and pumped his fist enthusiastically, yelling, "But fear not, my friend! I, the great thief Natsu Dragneel, shall come to your aid and free you from the nefarious clutches of the enemy! Do not despair or lose hope, for your salvation is speedily forthcoming!"

He struck a heroic pose that would have been impressive had he not immediately doubled over in pain, clutching his side where Lucy had kicked him.

"Geez, I'm right here!" she snapped, lowering her hands from her ears. "You don't have to yell so loud."

"You don't have to kick me so hard, either," he moaned from the floor.

Lucy ignored this. "You shouldn't waste such a surprisingly large vocabulary on stupid statements," she advised. "If you want to save your friend, you should actually do something about it as opposed to just running your mouth."

"I would," he protested as he straightened. "Except I don't have any supplies that would help me fund that kind of venture. That's why I was stealing from your ship; I really needed some repair kits to help get this piece of junk along."

"I see," she said, nodding. "We need to upgrade a bit. Fine, where do we start?"

"Huh?" he said. "Wait, all of sudden you're just on board with what I'm saying? What happened to all that high-pitched shrieking that was going on before?"

She glared at him. "At this point the only viable option left to me is to help you along your way as fast as we can so that I can leave. If we don't get this ship properly space worthy soon, I'll never make it to a Federation outpost so far out from our territory."

"Oooh, gotcha. In that case, then we probably want to head out for the Engi controlled sector. It's not far from here—we could probably get there without warping within a couple days. I know a couple dealers there who would probably cut me a deal or two."

"Engi?" Lucy echoed, thinking back to her lessons back at the Academy. As communications officer she'd had plenty of exposure to the various life forms associated with the Federation, but the Engi were a rather mysterious race secluded within the Alvarez star system, a region left mostly unexplored by the Federation. "Are those cyborgs?"

"Sort of. They're some kind of weird hybrid between humanoid and sentient machines but not like a cyborg. They're basically entirely made of machinery, but they still need air to live. They're also really nice, so we shouldn't have too much trouble going through their territory."

"Oh, thank goodness," Lucy yawned. "I really don't need more trouble in my life right now. So we're heading off immediately?"

"Yup, soon as I can get this stupid navigational system to respond."

"Good. In the meantime, I'm gonna take a nap. Cleaning this place has totally drained me." She rose from her seat and headed towards the bed on the back of the ship, only to pause a few feet away from it.

"Wha's the ma'er?" Natsu mumbled around a sonic screwdriver.

"There's, um, only one bed," Lucy muttered.

"So?"

"Well, it's your bed, isn't it? I can't take it from you."

He gestured dismissively. "Nah, go ahead, it's fine."

She blinked. "But even if it's fine for now, you're still going to need it later tonight. I can't just take over your bed."

"Hey, I said it's fine, alright? I'll take the floor; I'm used to hard surfaces."

"I can't do that!" she exclaimed, scandalized.

He strode over to where she stood and stopped barely a foot away from her, looking her straight in the eye. "I said it's okay with me," he said steadily. "It's my fault you're stuck in this garbage can anyway. The least I can do is give you a place to sleep."

Lucy held still, gazing into his honest onyx eyes and felt a wave of shame begin to well up within her. It occurred to her that from the moment she met this man she hadn't been particularly kind to him, both in her mannerisms and her movements. And yet here he was, offering her one of his only bits of comfort in a horridly uncomfortable situation. Suddenly, she felt as if she could no longer meet his eye, and dropped her gaze.

"I…thank you, Mr. Dragneel," she whispered.

"Hey, don't worry about it!" he laughed, clapping her shoulder. "If you feel that bad, think of it this way: we're gonna get a new ship soon, and we're not taking one without two beds. Okay?"

She nodded mutely, unable to return his blinding grin.

He went back to fiddling with the navigational system, whistling some off-key tune as he did so. Lucy sat on the bed despondently and lay down, but did not fall asleep. Instead, she tried thinking of something she could do for him as an apology for her deplorable behavior. The problem was she had very little to work with in general, and had no idea what he needed aside from more supplies and a new ship. And as much as she would like to help him along in that area, she would need a huge sum of money to purchase said supplies.

Lucy rolled over, facing the wall. Money. That was it. It was probably the only thing she could do help out her host. While she didn't have any money on her, she did have a considerable amount stored in her intergalactic bank saved up from her various mission pay. She was loathe to part from that money, as she had been considering buying a small house back on Magnolia for herself, but perhaps this situation called for it more than a far off dream. Besides, buying a house on a planet thousands of light years away wouldn't help much if they couldn't get off the floating bit of scrap they were currently stranded in.

That settled it. When they reached the Engi controlled-sector and came across a shop, she would donate her money to help out Natsu. Happy with her decision, Lucy closed her eyes and allowed herself to drift off to the soft shores of sleep.

It seemed as if she had barely closed her eyes for more than five seconds before Natsu was yelling in her ear to wake up.

"Wassamatter?" she mumbled.

"We've got a bit of a problem," he said with a grim look. "There's a C-class vessel headed on an intercept course for us. They'll be here in minutes."

Lucy pinched herself, chasing the remnants of sleep away. "Why is that a problem? Is it a military vessel?"

"Nope," he answered curtly, seating himself at the helm. "Worse. They've got multiple different types of equipment on them from different sectors, and not in an organized way. They're pirates."

"Pirates?" Lucy exclaimed, taking the seat next to him. "Oh great, just what we need in this condition. Please tell me we've got shields."

"Yeah, but bare minimum. Level 1-C only."

"That's it?" Shields on most ships in the explored territory of space had four levels of shields, each with three sub-levels. Level 1-C was the lowest possible, barely enough to fend off a couple asteroids.

"Kind of."

"Then we've at least got some weapons handy, right?"

"Well…" he glanced at her nervously. "Does a Flak count?"

"You mean an advanced _garbage disposal system?!"_

"Yup."

"Lovely," she said shortly. "Welp, we're dead. Do you reckon these pirates take slaves?"

He shook his head. "Nah, don't have the right markings on the hull. I'd say these are just some third-rate thugs looking for easy scrap."

"Yeah, that pretty much sums us up right now."

"Hey, c'mon," he protested. "We've got at least one thing they don't have."

She raised an eyebrow. "And what's that?"

He raised his in return. "The best pilot in the galaxy, obviously. Dodging their attacks'll be a cinch."

"Normally I'd debate that with you," Lucy said. "But in this case you'll have ample opportunity to prove it to me yourself. Look." She nodded towards the viewer screen, which showed the pirate ship coming into short-range sensor view. It was a small vessel painted a horrid orange with mismatched parts like Natsu had pointed out. "So what do we do now, captain?"

"'Captain?'" he repeated quietly to himself. "Heh, I like that! If Ice Princess could see me now…"

"Mr. Dragneel," Lucy said sharply. "Focus."

"Oh right, sorry." He pressed a few buttons on the control panel. "I've started up the Flak, but it's gonna need time to charge up."

"What good is the Flak going to do?" she asked, confused.

He winked at her. "Why do you think I insisted we keep all that broken junk? When that ship showed up on the long-range scanners, I dumped it all in the Flak compartments."

Lucy's jaw dropped. "You're going to use our garbage as missiles?"

"Pretty much the only option we've got right about now," he said. A section of the control panel lit up as he spoke. "Oh crap, they're hailing us."

"So answer it!"

"I'm no good at that stuff! You're a communications officer, right? That's what your bag said, anyway. So communicate! Answer them!"

"What do you want me say?"

"Anything, just buy me some time to get this stupid thing charged! Flaks fire the garbage at a weird velocity that somehow bypasses shields under Level 3, so this should work, but it takes a freakish amount of time to power up."

 _Alright…_ Lucy thought, and opened the hailing frequencies with some trepidation. "This is the—" She started to issue the usual interspace greeting, but realized she didn't know the name of their ship.

 _What's the name of the ship?_ She mouthed to Natsu.

He shrugged hopelessly. _I don't know! I didn't think I'd have it long enough to be worth giving a name._

She gestured furiously. _Pick a name! Any name!_

 _The-the_ Dragneel! _No,_ Dragon! _Yeah, the_ Dragon!

Gritting her teeth, Lucy refocused on the transmission. "This is the _Dragon,_ " she said clearly. "Please state your business."

A harsh voice crackled over the comm. "A big name for a small ship! This is the _Bootlicker,_ and we demand the immediate surrender of your vessel and its goods!"

Over on the side Nastu frantically signaled for her to buy more time. Lucy swallowed hard. Communications Officer she may have been, but she was never the one to negotiate with another vessel—that was the captain's job. She really had no idea what to say.

" _All_ our goods?" she asked coyly. When in doubt, rely on womanly charms. "Surely you don't need _all_ of them. Won't half do?"

Sadly, the enemy commander didn't seem to appreciate her tone. "Our conditions are non-negotiable. We demand complete surrender, or you shall die here and now in the cold embrace of space, and we shall salvage what scrap is left from the husk of your pathetic ship."

A glance at Natsu told her still he still needed more time. "Oh, how eloquent!" she crooned. "I could listen to such poetry all day." Natsu snorted with laughter.

"Your pitiful attempts at flattery are futile." Was this commander deaf or something? Did he not have any ego whatsoever? "Now, make your decision: surrender or die!"

"Well, dying doesn't really appeal to us," Lucy said hesitantly, "but we're not in the best of shape and need some time to—"

"No time! Immediate surrender or death!"

Now panicking slightly, Lucy glanced at Natsu again. "Uh, I really could use some good news here," she whispered urgently.

He didn't answer but leaned over to the comm and yelled, "Oh yeah? Well then here's our surrender, ya bastards!" He slapped a button on the side of the control panel. "Eat this!"

The _Dragon_ shuddered with the impact of the release of the garbage. Heart in her throat, Lucy watched a stream of metal projectiles being launched at the pirate ship. To her amazement, nearly three quarters of them actually penetrated the shields and slammed against the hull of the _Bootlicker,_ damaging the hull.

"Almost!" Natsu grinned and began recharging the Flak.

"Are-are we seriously fighting off pirates with trash?" Lucy sputtered.

"You betcha! Woah, crap—" he quickly typed in several commands to the navigational system and the whole ship lurched to the side, narrowly avoiding a laser beam from their opponent. "Yeah, this is the stuff!" he yelled.

Lucy had grabbed on to the control panel to avoid being thrown out of her seat. "I don't think you're supposed to be enjoying this," she bit out.

"Don't be like that, it's all part of the fun," he sang happily as he yanked the ship to the side again. "How's the Flak doing?"

She leaned over to examine the gauge. "It's almost charged," she reported. "About ninety-eight percent."

"Good. When it's ready, aim it and blow them six ways from next Wednesday!"

"Happy to oblige," she muttered. Locking on to her target, she hit the **Release Garbage** button and threw her head up to see her results.

Their remaining trash sailed through the shields with little resistance and collided roughly with the _Bootlicker_ 's hull. With a great trembling, the enemy ship imploded before them in a fiery explosion, sending debris in all directions. Stunned, Lucy lowered her hands and gazed at the wreckage in disbelief.

"We…we killed them," she stammered. "They're dead, and I killed them!"

"Oh no," Natsu said, facing her and wagging his finger at her. "You are not pulling that _pity for the enemy_ crap on my ship."

She stared at him in horror. "But they're _dead_. I didn't know the ship would be destroyed from that volley, I didn't mean to kill them—"

Natsu slammed his hand on the control panel, shocking her into silence.

"Lucy," he said quietly. "I want you to listen carefully to what I'm about to say. Now, I don't know what kind of comfy, cushioned life you had on that fancy Federation ship, but out here as a lone ship unassociated with any race or government, things are very different. We don't have the protection of a government or fellow species behind us. If we're attacked, we're on our own. For people like us, drifting pirates and thieves, it's kill or be killed out here."

"But—"

" _They would have killed us, Lucy,_ " Natsu said fiercely. "There's no such thing as surrender for pirates. And if we hadn't destroyed them, they would have marked us and hunted us down for revenge as soon as they recovered. It's how things work out here. So don't you _dare_ ever feel bad about defending yourself. Do you hear me?"

She bit her lip. "I—"

" _Do you hear me?"_

She nodded slowly.

He exhaled slowly. "Good," he said. "I'm not trying to be cruel or bad, Lucy. I don't like killing people either, but that's the way things are out here."

She closed her eyes, breathing in deeply. "Alright," she said. "I'll try to keep that in mind. But don't think for a moment that I'll ever throw away my basic morality."

"I wouldn't want you to. That's what makes us who we are."

Lucy smiled slightly. "Agreed. Thank you for calming me down, Mr. Dragneel. I really appreciate it."

He waved his hand dismissively. "No problem. We're crewmates, and if we're gonna be together for a while I figured we might as well make some things clear. Now," he said, settling down at his post at the helm. "I'm gonna fly around and see if we can get anything good from these scraps. Why don't you go and calm down? This was probably pretty crazy for you."

Lucy sighed. "Okay."

"Oh, and one more thing—" Natsu swiveled around in his chair to smile toothily at her. "I hate formalities, so just call me Natsu, 'kay?"

Blinking, she smiled back at him. "Sure thing—Natsu."


	3. Broken Walls and Torn Dresses

**A/N: Bit of a filler chapter, but still fun to write. I intend to take my time with this story. Enjoy!**

* * *

A day after Lucy and Natsu's rocky encounter with the pirate ship _Bootlicker,_ the blond Lieutenant had managed to calm down and (mostly) adapt to her new situation. She was less than pleased about the lack of toiletries and vowed to acquire some at the next station, determinedly overriding Natsu's protests that they didn't have the time or money.

With less than a day away from the Engi sector, Lucy found herself growing both antsy and bored. She set about investigating the inner workings of the ship to the best of her capabilities, touching up a system here and there, scrubbing off suspicious organisms forming in the dank corners of the ship, and generally just tried to keep her hands busy. Natsu too was restless, fiddling with the controls more often than necessary and pacing back and forth in the tiny cabin, muttering to himself and laughing suddenly at random moments.

"How did you do it?" Lucy asked as she inspected the paneling in the walls of the bridge connecting the two cabins. "Stay cooped up in a tiny ship with no one but the walls to talk to, just flying around aimlessly."

Natsu was performing a vigorous set of squats by the helm. "You don't listen much, do you?" he grunted. "I toldja, I normally have a way better ship than this, and Happy with me."

She scowled at him. "I know that. I meant after the whole Federation fiasco, when it was just you and this ship."

He flipped onto the floor and began doing intense pushups. "A lot of this. Exercise, exercise, and more exercise. Also like you said: talked to the walls, the bed, the floor, my socks, and the ship. Called this ship more names than I knew I had stuffed in my head." He sighed wistfully. "Man, if gramps could've heard me he'd have washed my mouth out for a year."

"Of course you're proud of that," she muttered, attempting to pry off the wall panels.

"But don't forget, I haven't been on my own for that long. It was just a bit more than a week, and I stopped off at a couple space stations on the way before I ran into you. Shame they didn't have any ships docked or for sale, I could've taken those instead."

"Well then, how did you get your cl—ugh!" She broke off, coughing as smoke poured out from the inside of the maintenance panel. Waving her hand to clear the acrid cloud away, she peered inside the panel. "Natsu, this is in terrible condition. Half the circuits are either fried or broken. And _oh man_ , the opposite panel's just as bad."

He leapt to his feet and bounded over to wear she was crouching. "Really?" He looked in over her shoulder. "Oh right, that stuff. Yeah, it was like that when I got the ship, but not as bad."

She looked at him in horror. "And you _left_ it like this? For all you know, it be connected to a vital system!"

"Nah, I know enough to tell that it's not. And, well, I figured I was gonna get a new ship anyway, so there wouldn't be much point in fixing it."

"Yes, except the inconvenient design of this ship means that if this sparked it could have a chain reaction that could blow up the whole thing and you along with it," she said through gritted teeth.

"Woah, really?"

"Really! How on earth can you be a veteran space traveler if you don't know how ship systems work?"

He hung his head sheepishly. "I always travelled with a crew of some kind, and they dealt with this stuff. I was just in charge of things related to the bridge, not dinky maintenance shafts."

"But it's basic training. Everyone who goes out to space has to know these kinds of things."

"I never had formal training. I first went to space by stowing away on a ship and then stole it when the crew went on shore leave. I had an instruction manual and a self-help system and kinda just worked my way from there. I mean, I know _how_ to fix it. I was fixing another one earlier. I just didn't think this one was important."

She eyed him in disbelief. "How in heaven's name are you still alive?"

"I managed, okay? Whaddaya want from my life," he mumbled, dropping his gaze. "Not all of us had the opportunity to get a fancy education like you did."

Her gaze softened. "I'm sorry."

"Hey, it's fine," he chirped, perking up quickly. "If you're gonna be here for a while, then maybe you can teach me some of your Academy stuff, huh?"

Lucy rolled her eyes. "Okay, maybe one day I can teach you some of my 'Academy stuff.' But I need to deal with this first, so shoo!" She waved her gloved hands at him.

He jumped back to wear he had been exercising. "Aye, Cap'n! Wait," he said, frowning. "I thought I was the cap—"

"Natsu!"

"Yep. Sorry."

They worked away at their respective tasks in amiable silence. Lucy brought out the repair kit she'd taken from the cargo bay and began working on both panels at once, while Natsu moved on from sit-ups to crunches and weight-lifting with the random metal scraps lying around the ship.

A soft beeping came from the helm. Natsu dropped his metal bar and ran over to it.

"Alright!" he crowed. "Finally, we've made it to the Engi-controlled sector."

"About time," Lucy commented. "What now?"

He pulled up a chart of the sector. "There should be an outpost about a hundred and fifty million kilometers from here. I'd estimate we'll get there in twenty minutes."

"I don't think I'll be done by then. This is a much tougher job than I thought it'd be."

"Eh, whatever," he yawned, stretching his arms out in his chair. "So you'll finish it when you get back."

"I don't think that's a good idea…"

"Man Lucy, you really like worrying. It'll be fine."

She gave him an exasperated look, but said nothing.

A few minutes later, a thought occurred to her. "Uh, Natsu? How friendly are the Engi with the Federation?"

"They were neutral for a while," he said, "but I think there were some scuffles over a planet recently. So, I guess they've been better."

Lucy looked down at herself. "Then I'm going to need to borrow some of your clothes."

He blinked at her. "Why? They're in better shape than mine."

"Because I'm still wearing my uniform. They might not want to deal with us if they think we're a part of the Federation."

"Oooh, sorry," he said, scratching his head. "I didn't really think about that."

Lucy rose, brushing herself off and gently moving her tools to the side. "So what've you got?" she inquired.

He cringed. "About that… I'm wearing it."

"…Sorry?"

"Well, it's not like I had time to pack a suitcase when I jacked this thing." He examined his fingernails with feigned interest.

"You mean you've been wearing the same clothes for over two weeks," Lucy affirmed hesitantly, swallowing.

"Kinda."

She shuddered. "Ew. Just ew. I'm beginning to feel really sorry for you."

"I did put them through the washing cycle a few times, though," he added defensively. "And I've taken showers. I'm not _that_ bad."

"Thank God for that," the blond Lieutenant sighed, rubbing her face wearily. "Great. More things to buy. And that still doesn't help my uniform problem."

Natsu was silent for a moment, but then his eyes lit up.

"Oh wait! I was wearing my red jacket when I escaped—it should still be around here somewhere."

She glanced around the ship. "Red jacket? I didn't see one when I was cleaning…wait, you mean that raggedy red thing? I thought it was a rag or a blanket. I stuffed it in one of those drawers over there." She strode over to the drawer and yanked it open, gingerly removing the jacket. "You wore this?"

"Yeah, it's one of my favorites!"

"I can tell," she murmured. The bright red jacket was clearly well-worn, with the end of the sleeves and the bottom in tatters and had multiple stains splashed across it. It wasn't beautiful, but it'd do the job. She glanced back at Natsu.

"Could I also borrow your scarf? It'd help a lot with the look."

His brow furrowed. "No," he said sharply. "Not that. Take the jacket and whatever else you need, but not my scarf."

"Oh, okay," she said, flustered. "Sorry."

Pausing only to swipe a knife from the food replicator, she headed to the bathroom, saying over her shoulder, "Thanks Natsu, I'm going to go change."

"Have fun," she heard him respond as the door slid closed.

Standing alone in the bathroom, Lucy looked at her uniform and sighed. It was a deep royal blue with the Federation emblem over her heart. The dress had full-length sleeves and a neckline that rested on her collarbone with a flowing skirt that just fell short of her knees. As much as she loved her uniform, she knew that she would have to apply some drastic alterations in order to wear it among the various peoples they would encounter.

She placed the jacket and knife on the counter and removed her dress. Turning it inside-out, she examined it, judging where she should cut and picked up the knife.

Holding the blade over the midriff, she started to cut but stopped halfway. Her jaw trembled.

No.

No, she couldn't.

She couldn't do this.

It didn't matter that there were millions of this uniform within the Federation; she knew she could easily get another one. It was the fact that this dress represented everything she had gone through to get it: the derision, tears, hardships, sleepless nights, and years of hard work and dedication. By adulterating her uniform, she felt as if she were cutting away at her career and her life.

Lucy closed her eyes tightly and let out a sob. She _could not_ do this. But if she didn't, she might never find her way back to the Federation and her home. For all she knew, she could die that very day in this sorry excuse for a ship.

Taking deep, slow breaths, she steeled herself and brought the knife down, tearing neatly through the soft fabric. Tears dripped down her face for every cut and incision she made, but she did finish the job. Once complete, she donned her now-tattered uniform and faced herself in the mirror.

She had done a fairly neat job. She had completely cut away the fabric covering her stomach and back, dividing the dress into a cropped top and skirt. The shirt now stopped just under the curves of her sizeable breasts and no longer had any sleeves. Lucy had added a large scoop to the neckline and removed about a foot of skirt, knowing that people would never expect a Federation officer to walk around dressed in such an immodest uniform. For good measure, she had put it on inside-out so that the color was slightly off and the emblem didn't show. She had tried to remove the emblem as well, but that was too much. Instead, she left it on as a reminder of what she had to return to.

The bright red of Natsu's jacket caught her eye and she put it on. As Natsu was larger than her, the jacket hung very loosely but was still passable. It covered the shorn sleeves and took away from the uniform with its garish coloring. She kept the knee-high black boots she was wearing; they were inconspicuous enough. Finally, Lucy opened the regulation-required bun she'd had her hair in and let the long blond locks come tumbling down her back and frame her face. Now she truly looked the part of the raggedy thief.

A sad giggle escaped her lips and she splashed her face with water, wiping away the remnants of her tears. The torn scraps of her dress were thrown away and she exited the bathroom, returned the knife and faced Natsu.

"Well?"

His eyes widened and traveled over her body, inspecting her. He nodded his approval.

"Nice job," he said admiringly. "Nobody's gonna look twice at ya now."

"So I look the part?"

"Yup," he confirmed. "Although you looked a lot prettier in the dress."

Lucy felt her cheeks warm, but didn't say anything. She had a feeling that the airheaded thief before her still had no idea that his casual compliments could be considered flirting.

He tilted his head, frowning. "Man, it's really weird seeing someone else wearing my jacket. I don't normally share."

She adjusted it self-consciously. "Well, thanks for letting me borrow it, anyway."

"No problem!" He flashed a bright smile at her.

The blond Lieutenant smiled in return. Natsu really was a sweetheart, even if he was also a notorious thief. She wondered what he'd gone through in his life to make him what he was today. Maybe it had something to do with that scarf he was so fiercely possessive of.

Clearing her throat, she said, "I'm going to see if I can finish up with these panels. That alright?"

"Sure thing. We're almost there though, just letting you know."

Lucy nodded and began working on the paneling again. The insides were still severely damaged. Bits of burnt wiring littered the bottom and jutted out dangerously. She had managed to repair a lot of the minor circuitry, but there were still several major parts that were broken in both opposite panels. Deciding it would be easier to work on them both at once, she carefully drew the wiring out of both panels and started to smooth out the kinks and repair them.

"By the way…" Natsu asked quietly, not lifting his gaze from the controls. "Are you okay?"

Her head shot up. "Huh? What do you mean?"

"I heard you in there. You sounded upset. Is it because you're stuck with me?"

Was he nervous? There was a slight hesitance in his words as he asked, and he wasn't meeting her eyes. Lucy hastened to reassure him.

"No, that wasn't it at all. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm still pretty frustrated with this whole situation," she laughed, "but I've mostly gotten used to the idea now. It's okay, I'm fine. This'll be fun!" She hoped the cheer in her voice didn't sound too forced.

He still didn't look at her. "Then why are you sad?"

"I just got sentimental over my uniform, that's all. Don't worry about it."

His long, tanned fingers stroked the frame of the controls softly. "I'll get you back as soon as I can. I promise."

The palpable regret in his voice brought a lump to her throat. She swallowed and setting aside her tools and gloves for the second time, approached Natsu. He glanced up in surprise upon feeling her hand on his shoulder.

"I know you will," she said, smiling at him. "And that's why I'm not upset." It was crazy. She knew this man for barely a day, and yet she really did trust him. Maybe it was his innocence or the earnest way he spoke to her. Maybe she was just losing her mind from the pressure of the recent events. Regardless of the reason, however, she knew that Natsu would do everything he could to get her home.

Lost in thought, the thief stared at her pale hand still resting on his shoulder. "Lu—"

A loud beep from the comm interrupted him. "Oh, we reached the Engi station! They're hailing us."

"Leave it to me," Lucy said confidently. She opened the channel. "Greetings, this is the _Dragon._ "

A mechanical voice replied in a monotone, " _Dragon,_ you have entered Engi-controlled space and are currently about to enter orbit around the space station _Nixon._ State your intentions."

"We wish to restock on supplies and possibly purchase a new ship, if possible."

Silence filled the air for a moment. Then the voice said, "Permission to enter orbit and dock granted. Be warned, however: we, the Engi, while a mainly peaceful species, tolerate neither piracy nor violence. Any disruption of the peace on your part will result in your immediate detainment, incarceration, and possible execution, should you resist."

"Understood."

"Dock at your leisure. Out." The transmission was ended. Lucy turned to Natsu and smiled. "See? All good."

He raised his eyebrows appraisingly. "You _are_ good at this stuff, aren't ya? That was really smooth."

She rolled her eyes, blushing slightly. "It's not that hard," she said. "You just have to be good at talking."

"Which I am so not." The pink locks of hair swayed mesmerizingly as he shook his head, chuckling. He typed in a few commands to the helm and began to pull in to the space station. "Here we go."

"Finally!" Lucy cheered. She raised her hand to Natsu. "To a better ship."

He flashed a grin and his hand met hers with a loud slap. "Amen to that!"

They waited eagerly for the ship to dock. The instant the station signaled them that it was alright for them to beam over, Natsu grabbed Lucy's hand and ran to the transporter.

"Careful!" she yelped. "I didn't put the wiring from the panels back together—if you touch them both and connect them, you'll be electrocuted!"

"Don't worry about it," he laughed. "Neither of us is that clumsy; we'll be fine." Indeed, he leaped nimbly over the wires with the agility of a monkey. Lucy followed him with less grace, but she too avoided the wires.

Still clutching her hand, Natsu pulled her onto the transporter pad and faced her with a sort of wild eagerness. "You ready to finally get a space-worthy vessel?"

"You bet I am." She narrowed her eyes. "You _do_ have your own money, right?"

He stared blankly at her for a moment before answering loudly, "'Course I do! What kind of thief would I be if I didn't?"

 _A thief without money,_ she thought wryly. _I really hope he does, I don't have enough money to pay for everything._

"Now c'mon, let's go!" He activated the transporter with a few swipes of his fingers and they both disappeared in a shimmer of light.


	4. Fun with Engi

**A/N: There will be no update next week, as I will be in the Sierras in a tent with no service or electricity. To compensate, I wrote a rather longer chapter this time. I really hope you like it! It was oodles of fun to write.**

* * *

The first sight that greeted Natsu and Lucy as they materialized in the Engi space station was an enormous Engi looming ominously over the pad. Lucy gave a startled squeak, having never met an Engi before, and was unsure how to react. Over eight feet tall, the Engi was a hulking creature with impossibly long arms that nearly reached the ground. The head was square and helmet-like with a rectangular screen that glowed a bright green. The green extended down to the various pulsing systems that lit up a stormy-gray metallic body that shone like black ice, holding a dark sheen to it that dimly reflected its surroundings.

Seeing it in person, Lucy could understand why other races were unable to determine if the Engi were entirely machine or not. It certainly appeared to be completely mechanical, but it could've been a suit…or not. She really had no idea what to make of these strange beings.

"Hey there," Natsu greeted it uncertainly. "We're from the _Dragon._ Do ya need something?"

"A routine security check is required," the Engi proclaimed in a robotic voice. "Your ship is considered to suspicious under Engi Law 3645 Section 55 B: 'Vessels with minimal shields and no identified weaponry are subject to inspection along with their crews under the suspicion of possible terrorist activities.' You will submit to the check or be detained."

"It's that damn ship's fault, isn't it," she muttered to Natsu. "It's so messed up that it's not even considered normal to fly the thing." He grimaced in response.

They were ordered to walk down a long, spacious corridor lit by a pulsating green light, probably the same kind that fueled the Engi's bodies. From there they were led to a room filled with more hulking Engi holding various types of threatening weaponry. Sweating profusely, both Natsu and Lucy underwent multiple scans, some ranging from ordinary X-rays to horrifying chambers filled with more green light to actual physical probing. Lucy was nervous that they'd call her out for the communication device embedded within her emblem, but they ignored it. Upon finding nothing suspicious, the Engi conversed among themselves for a few moments, seemingly dissatisfied. However, they could not hold them without reason, and the relieved Lieutenant and thief were released.

"Did you see that?" Nastu complained under his breath to Lucy as they were escorted back down the hallway. "They were totally looking for something to pin on us."

"I'm telling you, it's because of that wretched ship," she hissed back.

Finally they reached an open room with windows that stretched from the floor nearly twenty feet up to the ceiling, providing a breathtaking view of the stars and planets surrounding the station. In addition, it also provided the less-than-breathtaking view of the _Dragon_ docked by, seemingly barely held together by a couple sheets of metal.

This was the first time Lucy had seen her new ship from the outside. As unimpressive as the inside was, the outside was even worse. The shape was a boring oval faintly reminiscent of a pill, and the coloring was a dull, slate-gray that practically begged: "Draw on me." In nearly all the slits and grooves of the paneling there was some sort of rusty reddish substance festering and it seemed to be spreading across the hull. There were also numerous cracks and burn marks covering the entire hull, as if it had been through an asteroid belt during solar flares. Seeing it from the outside, Lucy was flooded with the desire to refute any and all claims of her being connected to the flying scrap heap.

The room was filled with Engi and other species, and many of them were pointing and laughing at the ship, or shaking their heads in sympathy for the poor suckers that had to fly it. She glanced at Nastu to see his reaction to the ship. He was staring at it with a sort of fascinated horror on his face.

"You okay?" she asked timidly.

Oddly, his eyes began to gleam and he turned to face her with a look of enthusiastic amazement.

"I flew that thing," he said breathlessly. "I flew that piece of crap for nearly _two weeks_ and I'm still alive. I dare you to find anyone else in the galaxy that could do that."

Looking back at the ship, Lucy had to admit that she probably wouldn't be able to. Natsu really was an amazing pilot to be able to keep that thing together for so long.

Another Engi approached them. "We apologize for the inconvenience," it said flatly. "You and your ship have been cleared of all suspicion. We recommend for the future, however, that you attempt to acquire a different ship. Upon first glance, yours would appear to be usable for nothing except a diversionary tactic or a vessel for a bomb. It is highly likely you will encounter more trouble along your journeys in such a ship."

Nastu's shoulders slumped and he let out a small unhappy groan. Lucy rolled her eyes and said, "I told you it was the ship's fault."

The Engi continued, "As compensation, we are pleased to present you with two free coupons to the station's main dining hall." It held out two colorful small slips of paper. Lucy accepted them with raised eyebrows. "We wish you luck in whatever endeavors you embark on. Enjoy your stay on the _Nixon._ " It lumbered away.

"Woah, _cooool!_ " Natsu said enthusiastically, his former depression evaporating on the spot. "Free food, Lucy!"

She looked at him in askance. "Um, reminder? We're to get supplies, not food."

He gave her a blank look. "Yeah, but it's free."

"So?"

"So…when someone offers you free food, you accept."

"Not when we need to get more important things!"

"But it's free." He clearly thought she was incredibly stupid to not grasp such a simple concept.

"I don't care. We have a job to do, Natsu."

"But it's free."

"Natsu!"

"Fine, be that way," he replied huffily. "I'll just eat your portion."

Her eye twitched. _His maturity levels are through the roof..._ "Then enjoy yourself," she said airily, waving a hand. "I'm going to see what this place has got for sale."

"Hmph." He eyed her warily, obviously disgruntled. Following a sign that read " **Dining Hall** " with an arrow pointing to the right, he began to walk away from her.

"Oh, and Natsu?" He turned his head back towards his blond crewmate. She smiled pleasantly at him, then yanked his scarf down so hard that he choked and almost banged his head into her shoulder.

"One hour," she whispered, her voice as sweet and cold as a popsicle. "If you haven't finished by then and don't have something of value to show me, I'm taking the ship myself and leaving you here. We clear?"

"Y-ah," he croaked.

" _What was that?_ "

"Yes!" he gasped out. "Perfectly, crystal, one hundred percent!"

"Good!" she beamed, and released him. He backed up several steps and massaged his throat ruefully, wheezing.

"Man Lucy," he managed to say. "Are you sure you weren't a thief before this?" He wilted before the freezing glare she gave him. "O-okay, I'm going, I'm going!" Within moments all Lucy could see of him was his scarf vanishing among the crowd. She shook her head in exasperation and headed off to see if she could find some sales.

Throughout the various areas permissible for visitors to explore there were multiple shops set up. Some were selling weapons and shield upgrades, while others offered missile stockpiling and drone parts. There was even a bar filled with mercenaries and crew-for-hire. Lucy didn't pay them much attention. After all, there wasn't much point in trying to upgrade the tin can they were currently flying around in—they needed a new ship, plain and simple.

But in order to get a ship, she would need her money. She headed over to a large stall that read "BANK" in ten different languages, all in the flickering green she'd come to associate with the Engi.

She strolled over and requested a withdrawal, supplying the necessary information. While she waited, she dreamt of the new ship they were going to get. She certainly hoped it was going to be a bigger one—she needed her space. It would obviously come with some real shields so they wouldn't be blown out of the stars by the first wannabe pirate that crossed their way. Weapons too, they would definitely need to protect themselves. Maybe it would have an entertainment system, and—oh! A bath, definitely a bath, a large one. With multiple faucets with different settings, and maybe some bubble soap too. Beginning to grow excited, Lucy rubbed her hands together gleefully. And then once they had a respectable ship, she thought, they'd be able to make real warp jumps and get to the Federation relatively quickly. Soon she might be sitting in her own quarters with her real job and her real friends and—

"I'm sorry, but it appears your account has been frozen."

"…eh?"

OOOOO

One hour later, Natsu hurriedly dashed into the main lobby and immediately headed for the blond figure seated on a couch in a corner.

"I'm…here…" he panted.

"Hm?" Lucy murmured. "Oh, that's good."

"So first off, their food was gross and you were totally right to skip it," he said quickly. "Then I went and looked around to see what I could buy and this place really kind of stinks. I mean, they didn't have a decent shield upgrade that would actually go more than two sub-levels, and all their weapons were really sub-par. I did get the upgrades anyway though, 'cause I figured any more shielding we could get would help."

"Mmm," she nodded, not looking at him.

"And then I got a mechanic to give a boost to the recharge speed for the Flak, so we can fire trash faster now!"

"Mhm."

"And I got a whole bunch of scrap from some Zoltan who was selling it for super-cheap. So, I did do stuff, right? It had value, right? Right?" He gave her a pleading look. "Please don't kick me."

She finally looked up at him. "Wait," she frowned. "Why did you get all that stuff? Why didn't you get a new ship instead?"

He scratched the back of his neck. "About that…they didn't have any."

"No ships at all?"

"Nope. Last one was sold two days ago, and more won't come in for another three weeks. I'm not hanging around here with food this bad, so I figured we might as well boost what we can on this ship and move on."

Lucy moaned and leaned her head back on the couch. "I guess this just isn't my day then, is it?"

"Whaddaya mean?" Natsu asked. "Oh yeah, you looked pretty down when I came over here. What's the matter?"

"I went to the bank to see if I could get some of my personal money to try and help us out, but they told me that my account and all my assets had been frozen. I don't have a penny to my name."

"Frozen?" he echoed. "But I thought they only do that to people who become criminals."

"They do," she sighed. "I guess because I'm with you, I'm considered a criminal now."

"But how would they know that? You only left two days ago, and your ship was pretty far out from Federation territory. And they shouldn't have known what happened to you. How could they label you a criminal _and_ freeze your accounts so darn fast?"

All she could muster was a weary shake of her head to convey her confusion. "I have no idea. I've been thinking about it for an hour now, and've come up with nothing. It doesn't make any sense, no matter how I look at it."

He furrowed his brow. "Sounds pretty suspicious." He fell silent for a moment. Then, shaking his head, he gave her a double thumbs up. "But we'll figure it out, don't worry. We'll get a new ship some other way, and then I'll take you back to the Federation, and you can work it out with them there! 'Kay?"

She gave him a little smile. His unwavering cheer and enthusiasm was infectious; she couldn't help but feel her spirits lift. "Okay," she agreed, nodding.

"Then let's get the ship boosted as much as it can, and let's go!"

They explored the station for a bit longer, but found little of interest, aside from Lucy's much-needed toiletries. They didn't even have any human clothes that would fit either of them. Disgusted, Lucy wondered if all alien stores were like this. When aboard the _Zodiac_ she had never been the one to deal with supplies. And even if she had, she supposed that most races would make much more of an effort to please an A-class Federation ship than a couple of scruffy thieves in a virtually broken ship.

Finally, when they had nothing else to do, Lucy and Natsu headed back for the transporter room.

"Well, that was a bust," Natsu yawned as they made their way down the massive hallway. "Can't believe they didn't have any ships at all. Even the food was bad!"

"So, what, we'll just head for the next station?" Lucy asked.

He shrugged. "I guess. Not much else we can do with what we've got."

She heaved a sigh in response. "I just hope we don't break apart on the way."

Bidding the Engi farewell, they boarded the transporter and beamed aboard their own ship. Needless to say, neither of them were particularly pleased to see the interior of the _Dragon_ once more, as they had both been under the impression that they'd seen the last of it.

Looking down, Lucy noticed that Natsu was holding a large bag that she could've sworn he hadn't had before. "What's that?" she said, gesturing at it.

"Oh, this?" Natsu lifted the bag. "I asked the Engi repairmen to uninstall the cloaking device from the ship because I thought we'd be getting a new one, but that obviously didn't happen. We would've had to pay more to get them to reinstall it, so I just took if from the guys before we beamed here. I'll stick in back in later."

He went to his chair at the front of the ship while Lucy dropped off the bags of toiletries and followed, seating herself beside him.

"We're off?" she asked.

"Yup." Natsu backed the ship out of the station's docking bay and headed beyond it.

"So now what?"

He pulled the map of the sector up again. "It looks like the next known station is another three warp jumps away. We can make one right now, and we'll probably be able to do the last one, but we'll have to do the second one the old-fashioned way at impulse power."

Lucy made a face. "Guess we'd better get started, then."

The thief nodded and hit the warp controls. The ship shook dangerously underneath them as the stars outside the window elongated, signaling their entry into the warp jump. Lucy gripped the edge of her seat anxiously as paneling and furniture rattled furiously around them. It was like she was sitting in a nest of rattlesnakes with a beehive and beetle nest hanging above her head. Fortunately, warp jumps were relatively short, and within moments the ship stopped shaking and the stars were normal again.

"Whew," she said, wiping her forehead. "I didn't notice the first time, but are warp jumps in this ship always that bad?"

"Pretty much," he admitted. "But I think they've been getting worse with each one. Another reason we need a new one—regardless of how much I upgrade the engine, I just don't know how long this thing'll withstand the pressure of the jumps."

"Great." She glared at the helm and stood. "Do you need me for anything right now?"

"Nah, not really. We're not gonna be doing much for the next day or so, so relax or whatever."

"Good," she said. "Because I snagged some free magazine tablets while we were there for some light reading. Who would've thought that the Engi would have tabloids?"

He stared at her, scandalized. "You're gonna _read?_ "

"Why, what else I am supposed to do?" she replied, affronted.

"I dunno, sleep? Eat? Anything but that."

"Excuse me, Mr. Uneducated, but some of us prefer to stimulate brain cell production, not stunt it."

"You're mean," he mumbled, and stared at the helm dejectedly.

She smiled and ruffled his pink locks affectionately. "I'm just kidding. You're pretty darn smart to have gotten this far, remember?"

He smugly flattened out his hair. "I sure as hell do. And don't you forget it, either."

She laughed. "Don't worry, I won't." She went to the back of the ship, plopping herself onto the bed and pulling out the tablets. Smiling to herself, she began to read.

Reading was one of the main pleasures in her life. For as long as she could remember, books and words had always been an easy escape from the overwhelming pressure of her family and the aristocratic life. Even now, reading something as senseless as foreign tabloids, she was able to lose herself in the lives of others and momentarily forget her troubles.

She didn't know how long she sat there, but after a while her back began to hurt and she looked up, stretching and cracking her back. Glancing up at the helm to check on Natsu, she raised her eyebrows upon seeing him passed out on the controls. His head was on his arm and crumpled scarf in a slump, mouth slightly open and snoring quietly.

 _Is it ridiculous that I find him kind of cute?_ she wondered. Oh well. You couldn't fault her for admiring cuteness—it was a womanly weakness. She laughed to herself and glanced out the window to see if there were any interesting stars nearby. In space, one never knew when they would pass by some phenomena happening once in history.

Sadly, there didn't appear to be anything of interest. Just the same little white stars as far as the eye could see, and one moving one.

Wait. A moving star? Frowning, Lucy rose from the bed and walked over to the window to get a better look.

 _That's not a star._

Her gaze shot to the sensors. There was a blip moving right towards them on a direct intercept course.

"Natsu," she said. He didn't respond. "Natsu!" she said more loudly, and shook him urgently. "Wake up! We've got a ship heading towards us and I don't think it's to give us an upgrade!"

He jolted awake. "What? Ship?" His fingers fumbled at the controls for a moment, but he quickly assessed the situation. "Crap, those are Engi. They're supposed to be a peaceful race, but I guess every family has its black sheep. Damn it, of all the times to fall asleep! Why can't we have a normal flight for once?"

"Well you upgraded the shields, right?"

"Yeah, but only to 1-A. That's still not gonna do anything against a real weapon!"

"Then I guess we'll just have to hit them first!" Lucy declared, and slammed her finger onto the button to charge the Flak.

He seemed to behold her in an entirely new light. "Woah, I didn't know you could take the initiative."

"Shut up, please!"

His fingers flew like a swooping hawk across the controls. "Touchy, too."

"I SAID SHUT UP!"

A grin brighter than the stars around them flashed at her. She felt a vein throb in her temple but kept an eye on the Flak meter.

He let out a sigh. "Well, I've prepped us as much as we can be prepped. I guess now we'll just wait for them to hail us?"

The ship was still heading straight for them and showed no signs of stopping. It had reached hailing distance some time ago, but no message came for them. "I don't think they're going to," Lucy said slowly.

"You don't? Shame. Well, give 'em hell then!"

She swallowed hard before locking onto the pirate ship and firing. She purposely aimed for the side of the ships in hopes that now, this time, she wouldn't destroy the ship completely. Maybe they could still work something out, or the ship would surrender, or _something._ Anything that didn't involve her killing. She had understood Natsu's point about the dangers of space as a thief well enough, but that didn't mean she had to take it as the first option.

The volley of garbage flew through the pirate ship's shields and crashed into their hull, knocking it slightly to the side.

"Nice one Lucy!" Natsu cheered. "That was great, you knocked out their shields completely! Woah," he yelped as the ship fired on the _Dragon._ A small missile narrowly missed crashing into the back, sparing them only because of Natsu's excellent reflexes and piloting. "Weapons are still fine, though."

Her body was a live wire coursing with electricity in a thunderstorm. Nerves shook her so badly that her fingers trembled as she anxiously watched the power gauge of the Flak climb steadily. Heart in mouth, she awaited the next volley of missiles, but her surprise, nothing happened.

"What's going on?" she gulped. "Why did they stop?"

"Beats the heck outta me," he muttered. "But it gives me a chance to check 'em out, so I'm happy." He activated the sensors and scanned their ship, staring at the results intently.

"Small Engi ship, can't really tell what class," he reported. "They've got basic systems as well as a couple other modifications, but nothing too fancy. And hey, there are only two life signs on board—looks like we've got something in common!"

"They're not hailing us, they're not firing on us, so what are they doing?" Lucy wondered aloud.

"Dunno, I can't really figure it out. One of the life signs is moving towards the back of the ship, but I dunno why, there's nothing important back there. Just the oxygen, which is fine, and the transporter…system…" He trailed off, his eyes wide.

"What's the matter?"

His hands flew to his hair. "Crap. Oh crap oh crap oh freaking crap."

" _What?"_

He gazed at her in horror. "They're gonna board us! They must have scanned the ship while we weren't paying attention and saw that there're only two of us and our _crappy shields aren't enough to deflect beaming_ THEY'RE GONNA BOARD US AND THERE'S NOTHING WE CAN DO!"

"Well what do we do?!"

"I don't know!"

"Can we fight?"

"With what? Our fists? Like that's gonna do much!"

Her eyes flew around the cabin, desperately searching for something they could use to fend off an intruder. They landed on the crowbar Natsu had been using for weights and had discarded earlier. "Use that!"

"And what? Poke it?!"

"Hit it, smash it, something, anything! Anything to save us!"

"It's a _robot_ , smacking it with a piece of iron isn't gonna—OH FUCK!" He yelled as a massive figure began to shimmer into being before them.

Lucy screamed. "GET THE GODDAMN CROWBAR!"

"On it!" He dove forward and snatched up the piece of metal, spinning around and holding before him to face the materializing invader. He shouted and charged.

"GET OFF MY SHIIIIIIIIIIIP!"

The crowbar crashed into the Engi's middle the instant it solidified. It stumbled back, momentarily caught off guard, but quickly gained its bearings.

"Holy _shit_ it's got a gun!" Lucy shrieked and bolted past it, trying to avoid a beam of blue light, but it struck her side and lit her up in a crackle of blue.

" _Lucyyyy!_ " Natsu roared, leaping forwards.

She froze and closed her eyes, waiting for the pain to hit her, for the world to light up and then disappear. But nothing happened. Shocked, she glanced down at herself and saw the crackling blue light fade away.

"What just—"

Suddenly Natsu was in front of her, swinging the crowbar at the Engi. "Don't ask questions, just keep moving!"

Nodding, Lucy backed away from the struggling figures and bolted for the back of the ship. Maybe she could find something to use as a weapon back there, but her hopes weren't high.

Natsu unleashed a flurry of swipes with the crowbar, but they barely fazed the Engi. In fact, it seemed more concerned with its gun, turning it over and examining it concernedly. Frustrated, Natsu smashed the crowbar right into the screen on the Engi's head. This time it stumbled back and clutched its head in distress.

"Yeah baby, finally!" the thief cheered, but broke off as the Engi lashed out in fury and narrowly missed taking off Natsu's head. "God dammit, I really wish Happy were here right now!"

"What could _he_ do that you can't?" Lucy yelled as she desperately tore the drawers apart in search of a weapon. A belt? Like that would work. Salt? Shame it wasn't a Slug. Cotton? Sure, let's fluff it to death. Why wasn't there anything useful on this wretched ship?

"Nothing, but it'd still be better than you!" he grunted, flipping backwards to avoid another swipe. He tried to jab the Engi's face again, but this time it dodged it and aimed another blow at its enemy's legs. Natsu leaped back. "You're useless in a fight!"

" _EXCUSE_ ME?" Lucy screamed. "Did you just call me USELESS?"

"Well yeah! You're just running around back there, yelling your head off and looking for clothes to wear!"

"'Clothes to—' you freaking moron! I'm looking for something to fight with, jackass!"

"Hey, don't call me that!" He flung himself to the ground to dodge another strike. It passed by so closely the breeze of it ruffled his hair. Seeing that he wouldn't be able to get another pass with the crowbar in so easily, he began to let loose a volley of fierce kicks and punches in efforts to distract his opponent.

"I'LL CALL YOU WHATEVER I WANT IF YOU'RE GONNA STAND THERE AND—"

"Shit!" Natsu tried to dodge the Engi's downwards swipe by twisting to the side, but he tripped over a loose panel in the floor and was struck heavily in the side. He went flying across the ship and slammed into the back with a sickly crack.

"Natsu!" Lucy gasped, dashing over to him. Her fingers flew to his neck. Upon feeling the steady thrum of his pulse, she breathed sigh of relief, but it was short lived. A trickle of blood was making its way down the side of his head, and his eyes were glassy and unfocused. "Damn it, stay with me!"

"Trying," he gasped.

Panicking, she stood and reached for the food replicator, yanking out its selection of silverware and snatching a couple knives. She whirled around and faced the Engi, who was slowly making its way toward them. Steak knives probably weren't going to do much against whatever alloy the Engi were comprised of, but they were better than nothing. She felt better with a weapon in her hand than nothing at all, even if said weapon was useless.

"Come on then, BRING IT ON!" she bellowed defiantly at it. Spinning the blades in her hands, she charged the intruder.

It flung its arms out at her. She ducked and rammed one of the knives in the joint between its arm and torso. To her immense surprise it sank in and stuck. Leaping back, she held up her remaining knife warily. The Engi jerked back, reeling. Looking down at the blade sticking out of its shoulder, it gripped it firmly and pulled it out with ease. The blood drained from her face and she stepped back.

The Engi regarded her impassively before taking slow, shuffling steps towards her. Lucy's mind went blank, awash with the cold tides of fear. Her limbs froze, and she dropped her remaining knife. Not once in her life had she faced a situation like this. Never before had death stood so clearly before her.

As the Engi entered the connecting bridge between the cabins of the ship, Lucy's legs collapsed beneath her and she sank to the floor, shaking. What could she do? She had no effective weapon, no help, no experience. Nothing. Even her partner had been taken out. Lucy had never given much thought to how she would die, but when she did she always thought it would be her going down with her beloved ship _Zodiac_ or peacefully in bed after having lived a long, full life. Bludgeoned to death by an invading alien aboard a broken ship together with a thief had not been one of her imagined scenarios.

Falling back onto her hands, she tried to scramble away from the oncoming Engi. She didn't want to die, she was barely into her twenties and she had her whole life ahead of her and she wanted to go back to her ship and see her friends and fall in love and have a family and _live—_

The Engi took another step forward and stopped suddenly. It convulsed and began twitching spasmodically, jerking back and forth. At first Lucy didn't understand what was happening. Was the Engi malfunctioning? Did something go wrong with its circuitry? But then she saw the flares of electric light coursing through its body, and looked down.

It its fervent desire to eliminate its foes, the Engi had not looked where it was going. As it had made its way between cabins, its massive bulk had gotten caught between the wires of the paneling that Lucy had been repairing earlier and never put away. Giving off one last great jerk, the Engi slumped to the ground before her with a loud crash, thoroughly electrocuted.

The resulting silence was deafening.

Lucy sat frozen where she had fallen, staring at the Engi intruder lying motionless on the floor. Her brain tried to process what happened, but it seemed to keep looping back to panic. A noise behind her jerked her out of her daze and she spun around.

Natsu was crawling towards her, clutching the side of his head with one hand and gripping the fallen crowbar tightly with the other. He surveyed the wreckage of their ship and the fallen Engi.

"Wow," he said, blinking rapidly. "We did all of this?"

Still searching for her voice, Lucy merely nodded.

He whistled appreciatively. "Damn, then I take back every word I said. You're handy in a fight. Hell, you might be better than me if ya took down this big guy."

"I-is it dead?" she managed to squeak.

"No idea," he said. Edging towards the Engi cautiously, he prodded it with the tip of the crowbar. Nothing happened. He poked it again, and jerked back as one if its arms gave an enormous twitch.

"Well _shit,_ I guess not," he chuckled nervously. Setting the crowbar aside, he wiped his sweaty, bloody palms off on his shirt. "Now what? What are we supposed to do with this thing?"

"We-we could try and negotiate with the ship," she stammered, still not over the shock of what had just occurred. "Safe passage for their crewmember back."

Breathing heavily, Natsu slowly pushed himself up against the wall and slumped in pain. "Nah, that won't work. As soon as they get it back they'll just blow us out of the stars."

"Then-then we could—" It was no good. Her brain was still all over the place. She could barely formulate a cohesive sentence.

Closing her eyes, she took in a deep, long breath, and exhaled slowly. She repeated this several times, then smacked herself on the face to try and bring herself back to the present. Now was not the time to blank out. Natsu was injured, and they had an unconscious hostile alien aboard their vessel. She needed every ounce of her wits about her to get them out of this.

She let out one last breath and opened her eyes. She took in her fallen comrade, the comatose intruder, and the panels that had electrocuted it. Thinking hard for a moment, she clapped her hands together and rose to her feet unsteadily.

"Alright, I've got a plan," she told Natsu. "And if it works, we'll be way better off than we were before."

"I'm all for it," he groaned. "As long as it doesn't involve me getting up."

"Sorry captain," she said, "but I'm afraid it does. This won't work without you. You can rest after we're done."

His eyes lit up as she addressed him. "Yeah baby!" he exclaimed, hoisting himself to his feet. "I'm all fired up!"

"Good to know. Now help me move this thing to the side, then gather everything you need or want from this ship and make sure that that Engi stays down. Just keep smacking it over the head with the crowbar, and hopefully it won't wake up."

"Got it." Wobbling shakily on his feet, he stumbled over to the Engi, grabbed its arm, and heaved it to the side. Thanking him, Lucy darted around him, put on her rubber gloves, and began to work the broken paneling out of the wall. She knew that thinking right now would be a bad idea, so she focused on listening to the sound of Natsu's ragged breathing and mumbling of expletives under his breath as he stumbled about the ship. Every now and then a loud _thwack!_ would resound through the ship as the thief whacked the Engi over the head. Strange that she should take comfort from something like that, but right now it was all that was holding her together.

Removing the paneling seemed to take years, but she finally managed to extract the circuit boards of both broken panels. Holding them carefully apart, she faced Natsu. He was sitting on the bed with his head in his hands, staring at the Engi.

"Ready," she said. "You doing alright?"

He swallowed and nodded. "Yeah. Just a little woozy, that's all. I got all our stuff right here." He nudged several bags with his foot. "The cloaking device, the stuff you bought from the station, your bag, and some of my stuff. That good?"

"Perfect. Now get to the transporter."

"Huh?"

"Go!"

He hurriedly complied, grabbing their things and climbing onto one of the pads. "But where are we going?" he asked. "The only other place to go is the other ship, and…" He narrowed his eyes. "No. We're not doing that…are we?"

"Yup," she answered brightly. "They boarded us, so we're going to return the favor."

"But _how?_ Hello, did you not just see what ONE did to us? And now you want to go to their ship and attack _them_?"

She climbed onto the pad alongside him. "Don't you remember? When you scanned their ship, you said there were only two crewmembers. Well, there's one," she nodded towards the fallen intruder. "And the other one's on their ship. We took down their shields before, so we can beam in without a problem. We're gonna board them and have a two-on-one advantage, and I'm bringing along _these_ babies," she hefted the two broken panels, "to give the one there the same quality treatment that this sucker got. They've got built-in batteries, so they'll still give off a nice zap. Once he's down for the count, we'll send him back here with his friend, and we'll switch ships!" She finished triumphantly.

He gaped at her. "You're nuts."

"At the moment, yes."

Even as battered and bruised as he was, he managed to give her one of his usual toothy, blinding grins. "I really like that! You'll make an a _wesome_ thief. We're gonna have so much fun together."

A drop of sweat trickled down the back of her neck. "Please don't say that," she muttered. "I don't want to imagine being in these kind of situations on a daily basis." The timer on the transporter that she'd activated kicked in, and they disappeared. An instant later, they reformed aboard the attacking ship.

She blinked away the stars that tended to accompany beaming. They were in a bright, clean ship that glowed with the trademark green Engi light. Alarms were blaring, no doubt caused by their appearance. She glanced at Natsu.

"You were looking at the scan of their ship, do you remember where the other Engi is?"

"Yeah, I think down the corridor outside this room, through their medbay, and on the left."

"Then let's go!" She jumped down from the pad and ran out the door.

"Hey, wait up!" he called after her. "I'm not in as good condition as you!"

She halted and waited for him impatiently. "You know, the Engi's not just gonna twiddle it's thumbs and wait for us!"

"Sorry, sorry," he panted as he ran up beside her. He had abandoned their belongings back in the transporter room, and held only the battered crowbar in his hands. Together they ran down the glowing hallway and into the medbay.

"I'll jump at it to distract it," Natsu said, "and then you'll run in behind me and zap it. We do this fast, so it doesn't have time to react."

Lucy gave a sharp nod in confirmation.

"Now!" Natsu cried, and ran into the room where the pilot was stationed. It spun around as the attacking thief ran in and shot him squarely in the chest with the same crackling blue beam that had struck Lucy back on the _Dragon._ Lucy shrieked as it hit Natsu, but like before nothing happened. The Engi reeled backwards in surprise, and Natsu took advantage of its shock and darted forwards, sending the crowbar crashing into its face.

"Do it, Lucy!" he yelled.

She swallowed hard and darted in around him. The Engi was still stunned by Natsu's attack and didn't react to her advances in time. Lifting the broken circuit boards with hands clad in rubber gloves, she slammed them both onto the Engi's torso. It reacted to the surge of electricity much in the same way the other had: twitching and flailing about until it fell face down onto the floor before them.

"My God," she breathed heavily. "I can't believe that worked."

Natsu stared at the second unconscious Engi of their day. "Neither can I."

She carefully dropped the panels and grabbed one of the Engi's arms. "C'mon, we need to get this out of here as fast as we can. Oh, and can you turn off that stupid alarm? I'm getting a headache."

He did so, then knelt and grabbed the other arm. Together they dragged the alien across its soon to be ex-ship and hauled it onto the transporter pad.

"Ciao, ciao!" Lucy chirped as she activated the transporter.

"You know, I feel kinda bad, dumping them on that trash pile of a ship," Natsu said as he watched the Engi shimmer and disappear from the ship.

"Hey, wasn't it you who gave me that whole 'no pity for the enemy' speech?"

"Yeah, but this seems overly cruel."

"They'll be fine. They can just go back to that station and hope that no one recognizes them as pirates. And hey," she added, extending her arms out at the ship and raising her eyebrows. "We've got a new ship now!"

He slammed his fists together in glee. "Hell yes! About time, too."

The sight of him standing there with his fists together, bloody and exhausted yet still grinning away like they'd just gone to a party triggered something in Lucy, and she began to laugh. She laughed and laughed and laughed until she couldn't breathe and still laughed because it wasn't funny it was amazing because she was _alive_ and they were both alive and they even had a new ship. For the second time that day her knees gave and she sank to the floor, clutching her stomach and still laughing.

"Hey, what's the matter with you?" he said, tilting his head, but that just made her laugh even harder. Natsu didn't seem to know what was so funny, but soon he was chuckling as well and then they were both on the floor, laughing until tears streamed from their eyes.

Maybe they'd make it through this.

Maybe they'd actually survive their journey through the stars.

Sure, they could still die next week or tomorrow or even that day, but at the moment they didn't care. They were alive, and that was all that mattered.


	5. The Torus

Once the euphoria of surviving the day and getting a new ship began to ebb away, Natsu and Lucy forced themselves to focus on the essentials of survival, like their health. For all of Natsu's gusto while fighting the Engi, he had still hit his head and was finding it difficult to stand. Upon seeing this, Lucy immediately rushed him to the medbay that they had passed through earlier. Fortunately, basic first-aid was a requirement in the Academy, and the medbay was well equipped so Lucy was able to patch her crewmate up rather nicely. He did end up passing out for a bit, so after setting in a new heading (where, she didn't know, but she wanted to get away from the Engi they had just stranded) she decided to explore their new ship.

It wasn't anything grand, but it was still far superior to the _Dragon_ in every conceivable manner. Consisting of ten rooms, it had a bridge with a basic navigational system and a weapons console with two weapons already installed. The shields were at level 2-B—not great, but enough to actually fend off some attacks. In addition to those rooms and the medbay, it also came with a drone control room and a main maintenance room as well as a finely equipped engineering section _that_ _could actually achieve warp drive consistently_. The rest of the rooms were living quarters for a small crew.

The various races of the galaxy had become so intermingled over the past few centuries that it was considered to be standard to supply ships from any planet with rooms that were meant to be suitable for as many races as possible. As a result, most ship's quarters were equipped to keep as many as ten different races happy, including humans. There were some exceptions, obviously—purists, racists, and loners would often forgo the multi-purpose rooms for greater comfort for their own race, but for the most part it was easiest to keep them as they were. After all, most crews lager than three or four people were bound to pick up members from other races, be it from capturing them in a battle, hiring them, or them being assigned from a military or government. Lucy never really gave it much thought before, but now she was glad—this meant that the rooms had proper bathrooms for humans as well as bathing facilities.

Humming cheerfully to herself, Lucy bustled about the rooms, claiming the larger one as her own and stockpiling the bathroom with her freshly-purchased toiletries. There were multiple towels of some sort of rough fabric found in the closets, but sadly no alternative clothing.

Ah well, she'd simply have to make do. At least she was far better off than she had been before.

Done with her inspection of the ship, she headed back to the medbay to check on Natsu only to discover that he was gone.

"Eh?" she said. Turning her head, she yelled down the corridor, "Oi, Natsu! Where'd you go?"

"Geez, I'm right here, you don't have to yell!" His annoyed reply came from the bridge.

"How was I supposed to know?" she said irritably, and strode onto the bridge. Natsu was sitting at the helm, examining the data in fascination. "You shouldn't be moving, you're still injured."

He gingerly touched his swollen head. "Nah, I'm fine. I've been through worse, and I'm a quick healer. Don't worry about me."

She raised an eyebrow skeptically, but didn't say anything else.

"So I've been looking over this ship," he said briskly, "And I gotta say, it's not bad. Not a great ship by any means, but decent enough overall. I'm kinda annoyed because it has really sucky weapons, but it's got a drone control system to make up for it, so that's okay."

"What's wrong with the weapons?"

"All it's got is the Leto, which is the cheapest of the cheap of missile weapons, and an ion blaster. Now, ion blasters are nice and all, especially the Mark II which is what we've got, but they're only awesome when you've got a real weapon to go with it."

"Ion blaster…" Lucy thought back to her weapons training back at the Academy. "Isn't that the weapon that can disrupt systems?"

"Yup. Downside is that it doesn't deal any damage. Oh, and if you were wondering, that's what those Engi were firing at us before. They had modified guns that were designed to shoot ion beams to disrupt any weapons we had on us, and then they'd probably planned on jumping us with their freaky arms while we panicked over our weapons. Who would've thought," he laughed, "that us being so crappily equipped would actually work out in our favor? Those suckers probably thought something was wrong with their guns."

Her eyes closed in prayer. "We got so damn lucky…Let's try not to push it with our next enemy. We need real weapons."

"Yeah, well…" he glanced at the gun that the Engi had dropped during their fight. "From the looks of this ship, I'm guessing those ion guns are the best we're gonna get for now."

"So we're still going to need to fight with crowbars and steak knives?" A loud gust of air escaped from her as she sighed. "Great."

"Hey, it'll be our first priority when we reach another station, now that we don't have to worry about our ship breaking apart on us mid-flight. Don't worry 'bout it."

"You know, you tell me not to worry a lot, but I seem to end up worrying even more that way," she remarked wryly.

"Not my fault you've got a stick up your ass," he muttered.

Her eyelid twitched. "What was that, Natsu?"

A drop of sweat slowly made its way down the side of Natsu's face. "Didn't say anything. Nothin' at all."

She leaned forward slightly so that she was breathing on his ear. "Are you sure? I could've sworn I heard something."

"Nope. You must be hallucinating from all that stress."

"Hmph." She started to withdraw, but paused as she noticed something. "Hey Natsu, there's a tear in your scarf."

"What?" He jerked around and grabbed his scarf in a panic. "Where? Are you sure?"

"Right here." Her fingers skimmed the scaled surface of the scarf until she found it on the edge towards the tasseled end. She handed it to him.

"No, nonono!" he hissed, clutching it desperately. "Shit, it must've happened when that thing threw me back on the _Dragon_."

"It's just a scarf. You can get another one later."

The look her gave her was a fierce, fiery glare that nearly made her take a step back. "No," he growled. "No, I can't. Not this scarf."

"S-sorry," she said, startled. "I didn't mean to offend you."

His eyes closed as he frowned. "It's all right. I shouldn't get mad at you."

She slowly slid into the seat next to him. The seats were large, clearly meant for Engi to sit in, so she felt like a child sitting in an adult's stuffed armchair. "That scarf's clearly pretty important to you. Was it a gift?"

"Yeah," he said quietly, opening his eyes but not looking at her. Instead he fixed his gaze on the floor. "From my old man."

"Your father?"

He nodded. "He died a long time ago, when I was still just a kid. Tried to stop a mass murderer from going on a rampage, but he wasn't strong enough. This scarf's all I've got left to remember him."

"I…" Communication's officer she may have been, but words always seemed to fail her in these sort of situations. What were you supposed to say? No matter what came out of her mouth, it always felt fake and forced. She settled with what she really felt. "I'm sorry." And she was. Losing a parent that young was something she wouldn't wish on her worst enemy.

A small smile touched his lips. "It's okay. I like to think that he's not really gone, not as long as I have this scarf. Because if I have this then I'll never forget him, and he'll live on in my memory."

They both fell silent, each swept up in their own thoughts. Then Lucy tentatively said, "I think I can fix your scarf, if you'd like."

His eyes lit up. "You can?"

She gave a small nod. "Yeah, I think so. When I was young, I had to learn how to sew. Kind of outdated, I know, but my tutors insisted. Something about tradition." Memories of sore fingers and bloodstained cloth flashed through her mind. Boy, had she despised sewing. She always ended up impaling herself with the stupid tiny needle. "Anyway, I know it's been a while since I've tried it, but I think I could sew your scarf up pretty well. I just need some string and a needle."

"Aw man Lucy, you're the best!" he cheered, and launched himself at her. She let out a startled _eep!_ as his body hit hers, his arms closing around her in a crushing embrace. A fiery scent filled her lungs, a sharp aroma of fire and smoke and some sort of spice overlaid with a faint trace of blood from his wound. It was a strange fragrance, but one that some (tiny) part of her brain (in the way, way back) enjoyed. His body was hard with muscle and rather heavy, and she felt herself being crushed beneath his weight and enthusiasm.

What on earth was she supposed to do? Lucy was not a "hug me" person. In fact, she rarely touched people at all. Now a notorious criminal wanted across the galaxy, not to mention her _kidnapper_ , was hugging her in one of the most suffocating and encompassing embraces of her life.

Patting his back awkwardly, Lucy said in a faintly strained voice, "Okay Natsu, you can let go of me now." His only response was to intensify the hug.

"Natsu," she croaked, now gasping for air. "Hey, buddy. Can't breathe."

"Huh?" he all but leaped back and stared at her. "What's wrong? Why can't you breathe? Are you hurt and you didn't tell me?"

She rolled her eyes and massaged her ribs. "In case you hadn't noticed, Mr. Thickhead, your hugs are a little intense. I was having trouble inhaling."

He blinked. "Oh." His hand flew to the back of his head and he scratched it, chuckling nervously. "Sorry about that. People are always telling me I don't know my own strength."

"In reference to someone who decked an eight-foot Engi with nothing but a crowbar, I can believe that."

A smug smirk spread across his face. "I _am_ pretty awesome, aren't I?"

"Don't push it Dragneel," she warned.

He chuckled in response, and flipped back to the data on the screen before him. Tapping a few buttons, he raised his eyebrows and glanced back at her. "Oh right, I forgot to tell ya."

"What is it?"

"I was gonna give our new ship a name, but the computer banks says it's already got one."

"What's it called?"

"The _Torus._ Not a bad name, but I wanted to ask ya: do you wanna keep it, or choose our own name for it? Y'know, as a symbol of our ownership or something."

She rubbed her chin, considering. "Nah, I think we should leave it," she decided. "I have a friend back on my ship that always used to tell me that a ships name was a part of it and made it what it was." A pang shot through her at thought of her flirtatious first officer, but she suppressed it. " _Torus_ is the name it's had, and we've got no right to take it away from her. Let's keep it."

His eyes widened slightly, impressed. "Well said. I'd like to meet this friend of yours."

"He'd arrest you on the spot," she informed him bluntly.

He winced. "Maybe not, then."

Lucy giggled.

"By the way," Natsu said. "Why did you set a course to the Gorkon wormhole?"

"Eh?" She leaned over to look over at the course headings she'd put in. "I have no idea what that is. I just wanted to get away from those Engi we dumped."

"The Gorkon wormhole is a shortcut that militaries for different races like to use when transferring prisoners. They named it after some Chancellor that died trying to negotiate peace between a bunch of different races."

"Oh," she said blankly. "Yeah, I had no clue. Is that a bad thing?"

"Nah, it's actually fine. It's a while away, and we need some time to get the feel of this ship and sort ourselves out."

"I looked over the ship earlier while you were down for the count; it's pretty decent, and in good shape."

He pumped his fist in the air. "Nice! I'll take a look at the engines before we make a jump, but in the meantime I could really use a shower." He scratched at the dried blood on his forehead.

"Good, you need one." Lucy smiled at him and rose, heading for the door. "Oh by the way, I took the biggest room, so you can have one of the smaller ones. Don't know how clean they are though, I just fixed mine."

"Wha? Oh c'mon, no fair!" he exclaimed as she left the bridge. "I wanted to pick!"

"First come, first serve!" she sang merrily over her shoulder.

"I was unconscious!" he yelled. "That is so not my fault!"

"Nobody said it's your fault, it's simply the way things are."

"Aaaargh, you—" His complaints were cut off by the door to the bridge closing behind her. Snickering quietly, she headed to her new room to take a shower herself. She hadn't had one since her abduction from the _Zodiac,_ and that had been some days ago. Not to mention that she had gotten quite dirty and sweaty during those days. The universe would simply be a better place once she was clean.

Sometime later Lucy woke up on her new bed, rubbing her eyes groggily. After dumping her filthy clothes into the washing cycle, she had attempted to comb out the disaster that was her hair before giving up and heading into the bathroom. She had enjoyed her shower immensely, taking advantage of the several hair products she'd managed to procure at the Engi base, and had promptly passed out on the bed, not even bothering to remove her towel.

Glancing at the time in glowing green numbers on the wall, she saw that she had been asleep for several hours. However, she still didn't feel much like moving, so she slowly gathered up her now freshly clean clothes and donned them. Was it her imagination, or was Natsu's jacket poofier now that it was clean? Eh, who cared. It was fluffy either way, so she was happy. Sighing contentedly, she snuggled up against it for a whole minute before she realized what she was doing.

 _No, no, no, you are not going all creepy possessive over his clothes. It doesn't matter how fluffy or comfy or soft or smooshy it is, you can't do that. It's weird and disturbing and really really really really comfortable…_ She buried her face in it again.

No! Lucy flung the jacket across the room and glared at it heavily. She would _not_ succumb to temptation. She would not snuggle with the thief's jacket because he was her kidnapper and a villain and a wanted criminal, even if said jacket was the poofiest piece of fabric on the whole ship.

Her arm twitched towards it, and she slapped her wrist in a warning. She turned up the heat of her glare.

"Is this a trick?" she hissed at the immobile jacket. "Is this some sort of twisted, devious trap to prevent me from reaching the Federation? Give me something lovely and poofy so that I'll forget all about leaving and I'll stay with you and your owner forever?" She jabbed a finger at it. "Well _guess what_ you delicious little poofball _,_ I'm not falling for it! You can sit there and look as fluffy and soft as you want, but I won't budge. I'll get home, back to my ship and my clothes and my blankets which are all WAY SOFTER THAN YOU, so there's no point in trying. I'm immune to your tricks. My blankets at home are far superior to your pokable and snuggly puffiness."

Seemingly victorious, Lucy folded her arms in triumph and leered down at the wretched bit of clothing lying prone and submissive on the cold, harsh floor. Her confidence wavered.

"There's no point. My will is strong, stronger than yours could ever be."

The soft mounds of the jacket were being slowly crushed into the ground in a brutal and cruel manner.

"Just give up! I'll never submit."

She swore she could hear the air being forced out of the poofs in cries of agony and torment.

"Who do you think you are to try and do this to me?"

It was a red cloud lying before her, gradually flattening out into streaks that would spread across the sky and be lost forever.

No. This was a trick! A trap! She would not, _would not_ —

Her face hit the surface of the jacket with a soft _wumph!_ and she sighed blissfully into the smooth fabric.

"This is a temporary situation," she mumbled, her voice muffled by the jacket. "By no means does this imply that I have lost to you. I'll still go home to my blankets. I'm just taking a break from maintaining my will of steel, that's all."

"Hey Luce, you okay in there?" Natsu's voice sounded through the door of her room. "'Cause you've been in there a while and I'm hearing weird noises and—" he broke off as the door whooshed open to reveal a paper-white Lucy crouched on the floor with her face buried in his jacket so that only her forehead and eyes could be seen peeking over it.

"What…are you doing to my jacket?" he asked slowly, tilting his head in confusion. He had obviously cleaned up—the blood was gone from his head, and his hair was fluffed up in incredible poofy ( _don't you dare it's not poofy in the slightest what are you talking about don't even think about it_ ) spikes.

"I…uh…" Lucy's voice was a barely audible squeak. "Snuggling with it?"

"You're really weird Lucy," Natsu said. "Like, weirder than most people."

"Shut up," she muttered, clutching the jacket to her chest.

"I mean if you wanna snuggle, just ask. You don't hafta use the jacket."

Her face turned the same color as the jacket. "Don't be an idiot!" she yelled furiously. "It's the jacket I want, not you!" Her hand darted out and grabbed one of her boots that she'd left on the floor when she took her shower. "Stupid!" She flung the boot at him. "Moron!" He ducked and she threw the other boot at him as well. "Take your stupid egotistical ideas and get out of my room!"

"Gah, I'm sorry!" he yelped. "I was just trying to be nice!"

"Sure you were!"

"I was! I'm a really good snuggler!"

Her face darkened from red to purple. "Do you really have no idea what the words coming out of your mouth sound like?"

"Um…like words?"

A bottle of moisturizer sailed over his head.

"I'M GONNA KILL YOU, STUPID DRAGNEEL!"

"Alright, alright! I'm going! Stop throwing stuff at me!"

He scampered away. Lucy moaned and stared at the jacket still clasped tightly in her hands.

"This is all your fault. Stupid poofy jacket."

OOOOO

About a half hour later, when Lucy had calmed down and collected herself, she headed off to find Natsu. Embarrassed she may have been, she still felt bad about yelling at the hapless thief and throwing things at him. Her pride was already in shambles; it would do it no further harm to apologize to him.

She wandered around the ship and eventually found him down in Engineering. He was working down on the machinery at the base of the warp core.

"Hey Luce," he greeted her. She jumped, surprised that he had noticed her come in when his head was a foot deep in a shaft.

"Hi Natsu," she murmured.

"You calmed down now?"

Her face grew warm. "Yeah. I'm, um, really sorry about that. I shouldn't have thrown stuff at you."

"Don't—stupid thing—worry about it," he grunted. "You're fine, it's pretty hard to actually get mad at you for anything. And anyway, how else are you supposed to improve your aim if you don't have a target?"

"Why do you sound happy about that?"

"It's good for me. I get to work on my dodging."

Despite his intentions, this was not making her feel any better. "So what are you working on?" she asked, desperate to change the subject.

"I'm installing the cloaking device onto this ship. Figured the sooner it's in and rolling, the better."

"Oh right," Lucy said. "I forgot about that. Wait," she added, frowning. "If we had that on the _Dragon,_ why didn't we use it? That way we wouldn't have had to fight those _Bootlicker_ thugs."

"The energy drain it put on the ship would only let it work for about 45 seconds per burst," he replied. "Basically, the ship sucked too badly."

"Of course it did," she sighed. Considering, she gazed at the thief working away. "So where'd you get that thing to begin with? I thought you said that when you escaped from the Federation, you only had that ship."

" _Fit,_ you little piece of shit—yeah, I did. I got the cloak later, about three days out."

Lucy sat down cross-legged on the floor next to him in anticipation of a good story. "Well? What happened?"

He twisted sideways to get at a better angle for whatever he was doing in there. "I was pretty freaking tired from all that running and escaping, 'cause I hadn't really slept since I got outta there. Had to make sure they weren't following me. Problem was, three days without sleep isn't really good for me, y'know? So I passed out for like a day, and didn't notice that my engine had started to malfunction and I ended up drifting. Pass me the flux stabilizer, will you?"

She hesitantly poked around the piles of various sinister-looking tools he had scattered about him until she found the right one and handed it to him. "Here you go. Then?"

"Thanks. Oh, I crashed into a ship."

"What?!"

"Well it wasn't whole ship—there ya go, finally. Geez you were a pain in my ass—it was actually just a giant chunk of it. Basically these two ships had been duking it out and I crashed into the remains of the loser. The other ship was salvaging scrap from the debris, and I looked so pathetic that it thought I was scrap too and tried to salvage me."

Lucy couldn't help but laugh. That was so Natsu's luck, to get mistake for debris and salvaged.

"So by then I'd woken up but it was too late to do anything—they had me in their tractor beam. So I just hid by the door to the ship and when they boarded it to check it out, I snuck out behind them and into their ship. Now _that_ was a big ship; I had no freaking clue where I was going. There were so many people of different species that I couldn't even tell where the ship originated, and I sure as hell wasn't gonna try and steal it. I know when something's outta my league. All I knew was that I didn't wanna get caught, 'cause odds were they were either gonna kill me or turn me in for a reward, and that's never good. So I just sneaked around for a while. I'm really good at sneaking," he added proudly.

"Clearly, if you weren't caught on a ship with that many people."

He scooted out of the shaft and sat up to face her, clicking his tools and gathering them up. "Eventually I ended up in their Engineering section and heard from some of their technicians that they hadn't found anything useful in my ship and were gonna just dump it. Apparently even the engine wasn't worth taking, and I kinda had to agree with them. But I knew that was my ticket out, so I pulled up a map of the ship when they weren't looking and figured out how to get back to the bay where they'd pulled my ship in. I started to leave but got mixed up on the way, made a right turn instead of a left and ended up in the wrong cargo bay.

"In there they had a whole bunch of shipments that they'd yet to open, so I obviously poked around to see if they had anything good. Mostly it was boring stuff like engine calibrators and medicinal tools, but I found a beautiful, unopened baby in the back."

"The cloaking device?"

"Yup!" He grinned at her. "Brand new shipment, they hadn't even deactivated the delivery container. It looked so neglected that I felt it necessary to liberate it from its abandoned position."

"So you snuck aboard a warship without being detected, infiltrated their Engineering successfully, and stole a cloaking device on your way out." Lucy shook her head. "I'm beginning to see why you have one of the biggest bounties in the galaxy. For as much as you act like an idiot, you're really good at what you do, aren't you?"

"You bet I am." He stood and typed in a few commands on the control board at the base of the warp core. A loud beep responded. "Annnd there we go! Cloaking device, successfully installed."

"Cool!" Lucy cheered. "So how long will it last for this ship?"

"This ship doesn't have the greatest engine even if _is_ a hell of a lot better than the last one, so I'd say we can go for about ten minutes cloaked, but won't be able to make another warp jump that day."

"It drains the engines that much?"

"Yeah. Some ships are good enough to go _days_ cloaked, but I guess we'll just hafta make do."

"Hey, it's better than before."

He snorted. "You can say that again."

"Knowing us, we probably will." She too rose to her feet and faced the thief cheerfully. "We should probably head back to the bridge and figure out where we're going to go. I'll bet we're pretty close to the wormhole by now."

"Probably. You go, I'm just gonna clean up this stuff." He gestured at the bits of machinery still scattered about. "I'll be right there."

She raised an eyebrow. "You're actually cleaning up after yourself?"

"You're little stunt with the Engi taught me the importance of not leaving wires out in the open," he replied, shuddering. "I really don't wanna become fried Natsu."

She laughed. "Fair point. Hurry up though, we don't want to crash into another blown up ship." And with that, she headed over to the bridge.

OOOOO

When Natsu arrived a few minutes later, he found Lucy sitting at the helm working furiously with a look of intense concentration on her face, a hand holding a communications earpiece to her ear.

"What's up?" he asked her.

"I've been picking up a transmission on a coded frequency," she said. "I was able to decode it, but the message is still pretty garbled. I'm trying to smooth it out."

"Who's it between?"

She looked at him, her eyes alight with determination. "I believe it's the Federation and the Engi military."

"Woah, seriously?" His eyes widened in alarm. "That's not good, not with us so close. What's it about?"

"Something about a prisoner transfer…I can't really make it out." Her fingers flew across the keys. "Prisoner 6239…being sent to the penal colony of Rura Penthe in the Engi territory of the Alvarez Empire… Ugh! It's so damn patchy! We still must be pretty far away."

"Rura Penthe? The ice planet?" Natsu grimaced. "I feel sorry for the sucker being stuck there. That place is supposed to be the ninth circle of hell." He shook his head. "Whatever, we'll just stay out of their way—"

"Wait!" she hissed, listening hard. "I'm getting more."He waited impatiently, tapping his foot with his arms folded.

"Crimes against the Federation…Happy the Exceed was tried and found guilty of attempted larceny and aiding a felon, sentenced to ten years at penal colony of Rura Penthe, located in prisoner's native territory."

Natsu froze. "What?! Did you just say Happy the Exceed?"

"Yeah, that's what they said." Her eyes widened. "Wait, does that mean _your_ Happy? The friend that helped you escape from the Federation?"

"I think so!" He gripped the edge of his seat tightly, staring at the helm. "We have to help him."

She gaped at him. "Uh, Natsu, he's being sent to _Rura Penthe._ That place isn't exactly meant for a picnic."

"I don't care. He's my best friend, and now that I know where he is, I'm not leaving him."

"I'm not going to convince you otherwise, am I?"

"No."

"Even if we're most likely get our butts caught and dumped in there with him?"

"We're still going."

She sighed. "Alright then. Shouldn't have expected anything else." She plotted in an intercept course for the Gorkon wormhole. "The transfer should happen right before the wormhole, so I've fine-tuned our course a bit. We going into warp?"

He nodded. "Yup," he said, and punched in the commands. The ship hummed to life and the stars outside the window elongated into bright streaks. "Maximum warp. Hey, you should be happy 'bout this, Luce. If we run into the Federation, you can go home!"

"Yeah, I can…" she started to smile to herself, but glanced back at Natsu. He was staring at the ship's progress with a furrowed brow, muttering to himself..

Over the past few days, her opinion of the thief had drastically changed. At first all she had seen was a wanted criminal that had taken her away from her ship and her life and should be turned it at the first possible chance. Then she'd gotten to know him.

He was wild, impulsive, earnest, kind, made rash decisions on a whim, flirted with her without realizing, cared about his absent friends with a burning passion, had an almost charming innocence about him, and yet could be serious and downright scary if he wanted to be. On the first day, she would have gladly thrown him to the authorities without a second thought. But now…while she definitely wanted to get back to the Federation and her home and her ship, she didn't want Natsu to get caught anymore. In fact, the thought of the grinning, boisterous man behind bars sent a pang through her heart. She may not have wanted nor expected it, but over the past few days, through the dangers and laughter and the banter, she had come to regard Natsu as a friend.

So if going back to the Federation meant getting him caught, then maybe she didn't want to do it that way.

This was going to be tricky.

"We're coming for you, Happy!"

* * *

 **So, uh...my chapter. Let's just say this turned out way differently than I had intended. Please let me know what you guys think- was this a disaster? Fun? Good? Meh?**

 **Also, I'm going on vacation again next week, so it's highly unlikely I'll post another chapter. Sorry about alla these breaks, but it's summer. Cut me some slack.**

 **Thanks for reading!**


	6. Rura Penthe

Natsu and Lucy both waited with bated breath for the _Torus_ to reach the wormhole. The trip was in reality only about ten minutes long, but to each of them it felt like hours. Finally, the hum of the ship beneath them calmed down and they exited the warp jump.

Lucy scanned the stars around them in the monitor anxiously, searching for any sign of another ship, but found nothing. She glanced at Natsu, who upon seeing her frustration, examined the sensors for any other ships in the area. He looked back up at her and shook his head.

"Nothing," he growled. "They must've already completed the transfer. They're gone."

She slowly buried her face in her hands, breathing deeply. A Federation ship had been _right there,_ missing them by mere moments. On the way she'd come up with several harebrained schemes to get her about without them noticing Natsu, like beaming her aboard during the transfer while the shields were down and then him taking Happy and running like hell, but even a plan as stupid as that had no chance if the ships were already gone. And now…

She slid her hands down her face and rubbed them against her cheeks, thinking. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Natsu furiously typing in commands to the helm.

"What are you doing?" she asked him.

"Setting in a course for Rura Penthe, duh," he replied.

She sighed. "So I guess that's what we're doing in the end, huh?"

"You betcha. I'm not leaving Happy to freeze to death on some penal colony in the middle of nowhere."

"Fine, I guess." She stared at her fingers lying limply on her lap. "How long 'til we get there?"

"It's in the Beta Penthe system which is pretty close, so… at max warp? I'd say one, two hours tops. The transfer ship'll still get there before us though, so this is gonna be dicey."

"Then we'd better start making plans if we want this to work."

He spread his hands out. "How? Aside from it being an ice planet with the nickname 'the  
Alien's Graveyard,' where it is, and that life expectancy there is about a year, I don't know anything useful about it. I figured we'd just wing it once we got there."

She raised an eyebrow. "But it's a prison."

"And?"

"And you're a thief."

"Your point?"

"Well, wouldn't you want to make it your business to know about all the possible places you could end up?"

He snorted. "Why would I? That's just a whole bunch of pressure that I don't need. All I need to know is that prisons are bad, and that's where I'll end up if I get caught. Moral of the story: Don't get caught. The end."

Lucy rolled her eyes. _That is so Natsu…_ "Luckily for you, I know a bit more about it than that."

His eyes lit up. "Really? Cool! You sure know a lot Luce."

"It comes from graduating from the FA with top grades," she said smugly. She had _earned_ those grades, and by golly, if she was given a chance to boast about them, then she would. "You've got to know enough to cover all your basics, and that includes famous penal colonies."

"So what're we up against?" he asked, leaning forward in his seat and resting his elbows on his knees with his hands clasped together.

"Well, bear in mind that I only have basic knowledge about the planet, as my branch of education was primarily exploration-geared and not military," she warned. "So I only know what was told to us in the overview and bits I had to study for the one test." He nodded.

"Right, so, Rura Penthe. Located in the Beta Penthe system, it's a penal colony planetoid utilized by the Alvarez Empire occupying the sixth orbital path from the primary Beta Penthe. Prisoners of every species there are forced to conduct mining operations in order to retrieve the vast deposits of dilithium which exist beneath the surface. Dilithium, also known as radan, is an element mostly occurring as crystalline mineral used to control the power of the warp drive systems of many starships by regulating the—"

"I know what dilithium is!" Natsu exploded. " _Hello,_ thief and mechanic here! I kinda HAVE to know what powers my own ship!"

Her face reddened. "Sorry. I got kinda carried away there."

He shook his head. "You're tellin' me. You're _weird_ sometimes, Luce."

"Hey, I—"

"Never mind, just keep talking," he said, waving her off. "But don't go all science-professor on me again, 'kay? We don't have time for that."

"Sorry," she mumbled. She cleared her throat, continuing. "Right, so the prisoners mine underground. In fact, they all live there because the surface temperature is extremely low, the landscape largely dominated by glaciers and gusting snow. Without proper clothing, warmth, or food, no humanoid lifeform is able to survive for an extended period on the surface."

"Yowch," Natsu muttered. "This place is sounding better and better all the time. Ice Princess would love this place."

"Ice Princess?"

"Gray," he clarified. "Sorry, go on."

"Everything else I know comes from the day we had the Academy's Head of Discpline give a presentation on it. Oh, I remember him," she sighed wistfully. "I remember him pre-tty clearly. He was this massive guy with a heavy accent, sharp teeth, and missing an eye. Boy, were we scared shitless of him," she chuckled. "Nobody tried anything for as long as he was there. Not if you wanted to live with all your limbs intact, anyway. So I remember this class pretty clearly. He stomped into the classroom, and one of the students ran up and shoved a box up at the front of the room for him to stand on, because he always had to look down on you. He trudged onto it, and gave us all this look like we were fresh meat at a butcher's shop. He waved his hand at the screen at the front and it started playing all this footage of the prison.

"'This,' he said loudly, 'is the gulag Rura Penthe.' We all stared at this video of basically nothing but snow and the blurry outlines of a building. 'There is no stockades,' he continued. 'No guard tower. No electronic frontier. Only a magnetic shield prevents beaming. Punishment,'—and here he got this nasty look in his eye—'means exile from prison, to the surface. On the surface, nothing can survive.' Here the video showed some guards tossing a prisoner in nothing but a loincloth into the snow. By now, we were all totally freaked out, but he kept talking. He said, 'Work well, and you will be treated well. Work badly, and you will die.' And with this huge grin in his face, he turned towards the screen where the prisoner had stopped moving and we were all just sitting there too scared to make a sound."

"This guy sounds _awesome!_ " Natsu exclaimed, eyes round and gleaming.

"Not if you were trying to take his class," Lucy retorted. "And he kept going, too. He went through all the major prisons in the explored territories, and nobody could stop him, not even when the bell had rung and the next class began. I know he was trying to hammer it into us that we shouldn't stray from the path of the law because that was what was waiting for us if we did, but he didn't need to go into _that_ much detail." She shuddered. "I mean, trust me, we would have been just fine without the videos."

"But that sounds like the coolest part!"

She gave him a scathing glance. "There were some losers in my class like you who were giggling with excitement over those videos, but the majority of us, the _normal_ ones, were totally spooked. A few even threw up."

"If they were anything like you then trust me, they weren't normal."

 _WHAP!_

Natsu spun around in his chair, nursing a large lump on his head where she'd hit him. "I guess I asked for that," he said ruefully.

"Yes, you did," she informed him icily. She tilted her head. "Well, I've told you everything I know about Rura Penthe. Does it help?"

He spun back around to face her, still rubbing his temple. "Yeah, it does, actually," he said. "And when we get there, I'll be able to get enough info to come up with a real plan. Thanks, Luce," he added, smiling at her.

"About that—when did I become 'Luce?'"

"You don't like it?"

"No, I…" she glanced to the side. "I actually do. A lot," she admitted quietly. "It's usually the name my friends whom I've known for years call me."

Something in his expression flickered before becoming carefully blank. "And I'm not your friend," he said softly. "It's okay, I get it. I won't call you that anymore." He stood and headed out of the room.

"No wait, Natsu, that's not what I—" The door closed behind him, and she slapped her forehead in frustration. "Stupid, stupid Lucy. Sure, you can successfully negotiate the release of over a hundred hostages in six minutes, but you can't hold a conversation with the one other person on your ship without trashing your relationship. Ugh!" She leaped out of her chair and followed him out of the room.

He hadn't yet left the medbay. She raced up behind him and caught his wrist in her hand. "Wait Natsu, I'm sorry," she said breathlessly. "That's not what I meant." He turned back to face her reluctantly. The guarded look his eyes wore was all she needed to tell her that she had really hurt his feelings with her careless remark.

This time, she chose her words more carefully. "I meant that I was surprised, that's all," she said. "It usually takes people a lot longer to get comfortable enough with me to give me a nickname. The fact that you call me Luce means a lot to me, and I'm happy that you do." She gave him a hesitant smile. "So don't feel bad about it, okay? I _want_ you to call me that."

"Then…does that mean I'm your friend?" he asked uncertainly.

She nodded firmly. "It absolutely does." If she'd had any doubts about it before, they had evaporated into thin air when he gave her that heartbroken, unsure look, as if he were a puppy that didn't know if his master would let him in her house or kick him away. Consequences of being friends with a wanted criminal be damned, if it meant he'd never wear that look again, she was pretty sure she would do anything short of declaring war against the Federation. "And I'd like to think that I'm yours, too."

Natsu's face seem to brighten up like a flower blooming in the spring until he was giving her his trademark blinding, toothy grin that she had grown so fond of.

"Hell _yes!_ " he exclaimed, slipping his hand in hers and raising their joined hands between them, gripped it tightly. "We're gonna be such good friends that those shipmates of yours are gonna _wish_ they had friendships like ours!"

A small giggle escaped her lips. "I doubt Commander Leo will see it that way, but I get your point."

"Oh, and now that we're officially friends…" He yanked her forwards by her hand that he was still grasping firmly, and she stumbled after him with a squeak.

"Woah, what're you—"

"I wanna show you something!" He dragged her across the ship until they reached a door which she realized, somewhat belatedly, was his room.

"Uh, what are we doing here?" she asked as they approached it.

"You'll see," he chirped. "Actually, we should be passing it now, so c'mon in."

The door whooshed open to reveal his room. It was one of the smaller rooms on the ship that Lucy had seen when making her rounds, but this one had a large window that stretched across the wall that the occupant could make transparent or opaque, depending on his or her desires.

Natsu walked over to a panel by the wall and pressed a couple buttons, causing the darkness of the window to clear away, revealing a fantastic display of flashing colors. Lucy gasped in wonder as space outside their ship seemed to come to life with the brightest shades of varying colors imaginable.

"It's a…nebula?" she whispered, awed.

"Yup," he answered proudly. "Nice big one with a plasma storm in it. I saw it on the sensors when I plotted in our course, and I figured we might as well take a look at it before we went into warp. I programmed the ship to automatically kick us into a jump once we've cleared it."

Lucy took several steps towards the window before sitting down on the floor before it, soaking in the sight. The nebula was a great cloud of gasses larger than twenty or more planets put together, filled with flashing and crackling light from the plasma storym that lit up the entire cloud in a spectacular display of fireworks, with each part of the cloud illuminated in a different color. She had seen a few nebulas in her time in space, but never one like this.

As she watched, Natsu came over to her and sat down beside her, also watching the nebula as they passed it. They didn't exchange a word, but after some time Lucy became aware that Natsu was quietly humming a song, and it was quite familiar, too.

"Are you…" she started, and bit her lip. She tried again. "Is that _Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds?_ "

He raised his eyebrows at her, pleased. "Yeah. I love that song. It's one of my favorites."

"How come you're humming it now?"

"'Cause I was thinking how this nebula kinda looks like one giant, sparkling diamond. I was also thinking about how I'm sitting here with you, Lucy, watching it, and well, you're Lucy in the sky with a diamond. How could I not?"

She laughed softly. "Well, I guess that makes sense."

They said nothing for a little longer. Then Natsu said, "Hey, Luce?"

"Yeah?"

"I'm glad you let me be your friend."

"Eh? You are?"

"Uh huh. 'Cause, well, I don't really have a lot of friends. There's Gray, who kinda-sorta counts, and the guys back at Fairy Tail, and I guess there's my brother, but aside from that…not really. I don't really get along with people. Happy's my only real friend."

She felt for his hand and squeezed it lightly. "Well, now you've got me too. And we're gonna get Happy back real soon, so you'll have both your friends together."

"…That sounds nice," he said, but so softly that Lucy almost missed it.

They didn't make another sound for the rest of the flight around the nebula, content to drink in the view before them in companionable silence. Only when the nebula had been reduced to a small colorful cloud behind them and the stars streamed around them as the ship went into warp did they get up.

"So, have you got a plan to get Happy back?" Lucy asked him.

"Almost," he said. "I'll need to see the actual place for myself, and then I'll be able to give you a real answer. In the meantime, I'm gonna go take inventory of what weapons we've got on board here. Wanna come with?"

Lucy shrugged. "Sure, why not?"

Together the two of them headed weapons hangar in the back of the ship. It turned out that the Engi had left quite a few ion blasters, but not much else in the way of damaging weaponry. Natsu grumbled loudly as he put them in a pile and scanned the room for any other weapon.

"Can't believe that's _all_ they had," he complained. "Like, what kind of crew doesn't have some kind of self-defense blasting thingies?"

"You know, I don't think we hijacked the most high-class ship here," Lucy remarked dryly.

A dark cloud of negativity seemed to hover over Natsu's head. "It's my fault. I have the worst luck in the galaxy."

"Aren't you being a little pessimistic? I mean hey, look on the bright side—at least you're not dead."

A panel by the doorway lit up, flashing red. Natsu hurried over to check it. "We'll see how long that lasts," he said grimly. "We've arrived at Rura Penthe."

Immediately Lucy's body seemed to light up with nerves. All the dangerous situations they'd been in so far had come up unexpectedly, and they'd had no choice to but leap into action on the spot. This was different. This time, she knew that they were about to head into a potentially lethal (who was she kidding—definitely suicidal) mission, and as a result she was feeling extremely anxious.

She gathered up the weapons they'd selected and headed back to the bridge with Natsu. Upon reaching it, he slid smoothly into his seat and pulled up the sensor readings of the area.

"Great," he groaned. "It looks like the transfer ship just left. I'm getting traces of tachyon particle residue from their warp jump".

"Are the prisoners already in the camp?" Lucy asked.

"Judging from the slowly moving pack of lifesigns down on the surface, I'd say they're on their way right now. The transfer ship would've had to beam 'em down outside the magnetic field, and I guess they're making the walk from the way there. They haven't reached the field yet, but they're not far from the edge of it, either," he added.

Nodding, Lucy laced her fingers together and looked at Natsu. "So what's the plan, captain?"

His right leg began to jiggle against the chair as he stared at the schematic of the prison below. "I've got one, but I have a feeling you're not gonna like it," he warned.

She sighed. "Just get it over with."

 _Two minutes later_

"Lucy don't open the airlocks, you'll die!"

"WELL I MIGHT AS WELL GET IT OVER WITH!" she shrieked at him. "Because it's either gonna happen NOW, or in ten minutes!"

"No it's not, we'll be totally fine—"

"We'll be totally dead, you mean!"

"It'll work!"

"You are absolutely _batshit insane!"_

"I'm telling you, it's the only way we'll pull this off," he insisted.

"On what plain of existence?!"

"This one, but only if you're with me," he pleaded. "So if you could just back away from the airlock—"

" _I don't wanna die!_ " she wailed. "What did I ever do to deserve this, O Gods of Fortune and Fate? Is this my punishment for leaving my family and being the first Heartfillia among the stars? Was that stupid taboo they kept talking about actually real?"

"Luce, you're really startin' to freak me out now, could you _please_ come away from there?" Natsu looked decidedly nervous now.

She shot a killer glare at him. "If we die, I'll kill you. And if by some glitch in the universe we live through this, I'll kill you anyway."

He gulped. "That's nice, but can we at least get to the surface first? We don't really have a lot of time if we're gonna pull this off."

Lucy straightened, brushed herself off, and held her head high. "Fine," she sniffed. "But if we're doomed to die in an act of stupidity, I at least want to go out with some semblance of dignity."

He snorted. "And you called _me_ a pessimist. Come on, we need to hurry." Lucy begrudgingly followed him.

Moments later, they stood in the transporter room, wrapped in as many of the warm blankets and clothes they could find on the ship. Luckily, the ship had had several articles of clothing for humans designed to keep out the cold in addition to nearly twenty blankets of some sort or another.

"Your weapons and tools are properly hidden, right?" Nastu asked. "Remember, they shouldn't check us because they'll assume the transfer ship already did that, but in case they do we don't want them to find them."

Lucy rolled her eyes. "I'm fine, Natsu. Just boiling under all these layers."

"Yeah, well you won't be in a minute," he said, activating the timer on the transporter control. They both hopped onto the pads.

He grinned at her. "You ready?"

"To die? Not in the slightest," she said flatly.

His voice grew distant as the world dissolved around them. "We'll be fine, don't worry!" For a moment she couldn't hear him at all as they were sent across space, but then her ears picked up his voice again. "…won't be as bad as you think, everything'll—HOLY SHIT IT'S COLD!"

And boy, it was. The instant she materialized Lucy was slammed with a freezing force more oppressive than she'd ever felt in her life. It was as if hands of ice were slowly squeezing her, choking her so hard that she could barely breathe. Her throat screamed in agony as she tried to inhale. Tears forced their way out of her eyes, but they froze before they ever made it down her cheeks.

And the wind. The wind was the worst. It blew all around, bitter and hard, invading every corner of her clothes and chilling her to the bone. It bit fiercely at every inch of exposed skin, and she couldn't seem to cover everything. She stumbled and fell to her knees in a pile of snow, breathing raggedly and trying to get her bearings in the miserable cold that was Rura Penthe.

She dimly heard the crunch of the snow around her over the roar of the wind as someone made their way to her. "Lucy. Hey, Lucy! Look at me!"

A hand grabbed her hood and brought her head up. She blinked, trying to focus through the wind. Natsu's face, surrounded by a fur-lined hood with strands of his pink hair loose and blowing wildly against him, slowly came into view.

"Na-tsu," she croaked.

"Come here," he said, gripping her arm and pulling her to her feet. "C'mon, you need get moving. It's the only way you'll warm up."

Her limbs tried to respond, jerkily moving forwards, but it was one of the hardest feats that she'd ever attempted to accomplish. She felt Natsu's arm slide over her shoulder.

"C'mon, you can do it," he declared. "We're not far away from the prisoners. We'll catch up with them in a few minutes, but we've got to move. You'll feel better then. Come on."

Slowly, she managed to achieve some sort of rhythm in her movements, and she started to walk through the snow.

"There you go!" she heard him say encouragingly.

"How… are you not frozen?" she managed to say hoarsely.

"I'm not human, so this isn't as bad for me as it is for you. But don't get me wrong, I sure as hell can still feel it! Damn, this is definitely the coldest I've ever been."

Somewhere in the back of her mind she registered surprise at the fact that Natsu wasn't human, but thinking or asking about it would have required energy she didn't have. It was all she could do to keep moving.

As they trudged onwards, she heard Natsu swearing at the top of his lungs, cursing everything from the existence of the planetoid to the molecules that comprised the snow they were making their way through.

"This is the sort of shit that Gray would like, not me!" he fumed. "I call him an icy bastard for a reason! I can totally see him having a field day on this crappy rock in the middle of space, but not me. I want heat! Fire! Flames! I am SO—GODDAMN—COLD!"

He fell silent after that, and Lucy started to panic. Part of what was keeping her going was listening to Natsu talk, and without that she felt like she'd fall over at any moment. She had to keep him talking.

"Y-you keep mentioning Gray," she said, teeth chattering. "I don't know mu-much about him aside from the fact that he's a wanted thief l-like you. You said he's your fr-friend, right?"

"Friend?" Lucy couldn't see Natsu's face, but she had a feeling he was wearing deeply insulted expression. "As if! I only said he's sort of like that, and that's only because he's one of the few people that will actually talk to me, even if it's only to be stupid."

"Wh-what's he like?"

"He's a droopy-eyed bastard who likes the cold way too much and has a perverted stripping habit."

Surprised, Lucy let out a shaky laugh. That certainly hadn't been what she was expecting.

"I'm serious! The guy can't keep his clothes on for more than five minutes. And the worst thing is that he has no idea he's doing it. And when someone points it out, he'll run around yelling because he can't find his clothes, and by then he'll have taken off whatever's left and then he's stark naked."

She started to laugh harder now. The whole image was so ridiculous that she wondered if he was exaggerating to distract her.

"He's annoying and weird as hell, but he's strong, and a good thief. Not as good as me, obviously, but still good. And he has his moments when he can be normal and sorta-kinda nice, but they're reeeeally rare. Most of the time he's just an idiotic bastard. "

"Sounds like you two are good friends."

"Um, hello, did you not hear what I've been telling you this whole time? I can't stand the guy! We're mortal enemies!"

"If you say so," she said, amused.

He looked back at her. "Hey, you're not shaking as much. You doing better now?"

She nodded. "Yeah, thanks. I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm still colder than I've ever been in my life, but it's not as bad now that my blood's flowing. Thanks for getting me going."

"No prob," he said. "After all, I need you with me to pull this off. Can't have you turning into a Lucysicle on me, can I?"

She smiled wryly in reply and forged onwards, rubbing her gloved hands together to keep them warm.

"Lucy," Natsu said suddenly.

"What is it?"

"I can see them. Up ahead. The prisoners. They're right there."

Lucy swallowed heavily. "All right then. I guess we'd better get this party started, huh?"

"Hell yeah! I'm all fired up!"

 _An impressive feat in this weather,_ she thought dryly. "Just remember," she said aloud. "If we die in this cockamamie scheme of yours, I'm going to kill you."

He laughed. "Duly noted."

* * *

 **A/N: I know this chapter was pretty slow, but it needed to be done. After this chapter Lucy and Natsu are going to start getting a crew pretty fast, and it was important to establish where their relationship is before other people start entering the picture. If you're bored though, I promise the pacing's gonna kick up a few gears with the upcoming chapters.**

 **Also, side note: The part where Lucy's describing her instructor back at the FA? I don't own that scene. I got it from the movie _Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country_. Actually, the whole planet/prison's from that movie. But everything else is mine; I just don't want to take credit for something I didn't come up with.**

 **Let me know what you all think of this chapter! Feedback is to me what gold was to the 49ers.**

 **Thanks for reading!**


	7. Quest! Save the Flying Cat!

Lucy could vaguely make out the figures of multiple large shapes making their way through the snow in front of them. She glanced at Natsu.

"Now?"

He cracked his knuckles in response. "Not gonna get a better time."

She nodded and together they both plunged forwards, heading for the rear of the group before them. The wind was so strong around them that none of the prisoners or their escorts noticed the two thieves sidle surreptitiously into the back of the group. At first Lucy was surprised to see that the only apparent guards were at the front of the group, but then she realized that that was the only place they needed to be. After all, there was nowhere to run.

They didn't say a word after that, afraid that speaking would draw unwanted attention to themselves. Instead they plodded forwards with the rest of the group, huddled together in attempt to keep as warm as possible.

Finally after marching for what seemed like hours, the guards at the head of the group brought them to a halt. They stood, shivering and huddled in their fur clothes, staring at a small round lump protruding from the snow. The sound of gears churning furiously sounded out above the roaring wind, and Lucy saw an enormous trapdoor of some kind rising out of the snow before the small dome. The sides of it were lined with little lights, and the ground underneath it descended into darkness. This was, Lucy realized, the entrance to the prison.

One of the guards turned to address them all. She couldn't make out any individual features, but she heard his voice clearly stating, "This is the doorway to the place you will spend the rest of your natural lives. Work and live. Disobey and die. That is all." He turned his back on them and began to go down the steps. The rest of the guards prodded the prisoners forward, and they each headed down themselves.

They headed down a long flight of stairs carved out from the rocks beneath them. The walls and floor were coated in a thick layer of ice, making the descent extremely treacherous.

They emerged in a dimly lit cavern that smelled like stale air and ozone. It was by no means warm, but without the brutal wind that swept across the surface, it was tolerable to the point that Lucy's throat didn't scream in agony when she inhaled.

Now that she could actually open her eyes wide enough to see, she realized that they were in a rather large group of prisoners, perhaps twenty or thirty in all. And because they were all wearing the same ragged assortments of furred clothing, it was impossible to distinguish between any of them.

The prisoners were lined up in front of a station where two inmates were fitting the newcomers with large, thick, and heavy metal shackles around their ankles. Lucy glanced nervously at Natsu. He met her eyes and winked, nodding assuringly. _We'll be fine,_ he seemed to say.

As the leaden weight of the shackles snapped into place around her ankles, Lucy could only hope and pray that he was right.

After that, they were herded down a dim, dank tunnel with more ice lining the walls and hanging down in massive stalactites. As they moved, Lucy hissed to Natsu, "Do you see Happy?"

"Not yet, but there are a lot of prisoners here and he's pretty small. We'll see him soon, I'm sure of it."

"And if we don't?"

He swallowed heavily. "I'm trying not to think about it."

And he wondered why she thought they were going to die?

They exited the tunnel and came into another cave, this one far larger than the last and brightly lit. It was also filled with a variety of species, presumably all prisoners, talking loudly and quarreling among themselves. However, as the new inmates filed in, the chatter died down as they took in the fresh arrivals.

Lucy and Natsu tried to stay as far back as they could. Neither of them liked the looks they were getting from the inmates.

One prisoner climbed to his feet and lumbered to the center of the cave. Lucy racked her brains, trying to identify it, but for the life of her she could not figure out what it was. All she could say about it was that it was gray, mean-looking, probably male, and around ten feet tall.

"Look at this," he boomed, looming over them. "I see the guards were kind enough to provide us with some fresh meat!"

The room was filled with the raucous laughter of the prisoners at the gray inmate's comment. The newly-dubbed "fresh meat" did not join them.

"Well, little newbies?" He leaned over them and grinned, displaying a wide set of large, sharp teeth. "Do you feel like getting eaten today?"

"Sorry, not right now," one of Lucy's group replied. "I'm afraid you'll have to wait for us to defrost first. It was quite the meat locker out there."

Laughter filled the cave once more, but it was more jovial this time; less harsh and cruel. This was more of a response to a good joke then the start of a hazing session. Or at least it was, until the gray prisoner's face clouded with anger at his being showed up.

"Huh, we've got ourselves some smart-asses here!" he growled, and faster than Lucy could track with her eyes, knocked the first three of her group into the air with one great swipe of his enormous arm. The whole group stumbled back. He roared, "I guess we've gotta teach 'em some manners!"

"Woah, calm down Erigor," someone said from the side. "We don't need to rough them up yet, they were just making a joke."

"Shut up!" Erigor yelled. "Or do you want me to crush your brains out too?"

"As if you could!" another voice called out mockingly.

"I know I sure as hell could!" a third voice rang out.

"Oh yeah? Then why don't you prove it?"

"Fuck no! Why should I fight that asshole?" the first voice protested.

"Too afraid?"

"Yeah, he's totally chickening out!"

"What'd you say?"

"Ooh, he's gonna get it now…"

"You'll eat those words, together with my fist!"

The next thing Lucy knew, the entire room had dissolved into pure anarchy and chaos. Everywhere she looked it seemed there was fighting and limbs flailing in every direction. An arm grabbed her hand, and she shrieked and kicked out in a panic.

"OW!" a voice yelled, and Lucy realized she had just driven her foot into Natsu's gut.

"I'm sorry!" she called over the din of the fighting around them. "I didn't realize it was you!"

"Yeah, whatever, let's just get out of here!" he shouted back, and the two of them fought their way to the other side of the cave and out the nearest tunnel into another smaller cave. This one contained some prisoners as well, but they merely glanced briefly at the pair before going back to their business.

"Geez that was bad," Natsu gasped, panting. "I didn't think it'd get so rowdy that fast."

"Are all prisons like this?" Lucy groaned.

"How should I know? I've only been captured a couple times, and I never actually made it to a prison before I got out."

She slumped to the ground, massaging her leg that had been struck in the mayhem of the fight. "We are so gonna die here, I totally called it."

"Negative, negative, so negative," he sighed. "Although I have to admit, this isn't exactly the best start."

" _bIHeghvIpchugh bIHeghpu_ ," someone said quietly behind them. Lucy yelped and Natsu spun around in surprise. The other people in this room hadn't been paying them much attention, so who had spoken? As they looked more carefully they realized there was someone sitting in a small alcove in the wall near them atop a pile of rags.

It was a man, dark-skinned with curious ridges on his forehead and slightly pointed ears, wild maroon hair, and a large scar along his face that cut across his left eye. A Klingon, Lucy realized with surprise. It was odd to find one of the fierce warriors in prison, as their people usually preferred to die over being captured. However, one was here before them, gazing at them appraisingly.

"Huh?" Natsu said blankly. "What'd you say?" The Klingon blinked slowly at him before repeating himself.

Alarmed, Natsu hissed at Lucy, "What's he saying? I have no idea what that meant! He's a Klingon, right? I can't speak Klingon!"

"And what makes you think I can?" she hissed back.

"'Cause you're smart and you're Lucy."

She raised an eyebrow. "Luckily for you, I understand Klingon to a certain degree, even if I can't speak it. Being a communications officer requires you to be vastly multilingual."

"So what's he saying? Is he trying to kill us?"

"Actually no. He said, 'If you are afraid to die, then you have already died.'"

Natsu looked back at the Klingon. "I'm not the one afraid to die," he protested indignantly. "That's Lucy over here. She worries way too much."

The Klingon shook his head slightly. " _Heghlu'DI' mobbe'lu'chugh QaQqu' Hegh wanI'_."

Natsu gaped at him. "Wha?"

"He said, 'Death is an experience best shared,'" Lucy translated. "And no, it most certainly is not!" she snapped. "Not dying at all is the best option by far."

He shrugged lightly in response. " _QamvIS Hegh qaq law' torvIS yIn qaq puS_." _Better to live on our feet than die on our knees._

"Not if it means I can get back up again," she retorted.

His eyebrows shot up and he let out a deep, hearty laugh. Swinging his legs off the ledge, he sat up straight and tilted his head approvingly at her.

"You speak well, for a human," he said in the common tongue. "I can see you have the makings of a warrior."

"Wha—you can talk normally?" Natsu spluttered. "Man, that is so uncool! Couldn't you have just done that from the beginning?"

"I do not like to speak in this way," the Klingon said. "But the woman has spoken like a Klingon and let me speak mine own tongue for a time, so I shall honor her in hers."

Natsu scowled, then shrugged. "Alright, I guess that makes sense."

Lucy hid a smile before turning back to the Klingon. "Thank you for speaking to us so that we may understand you," she said smoothly. "I am Lucy Heartfillia, and this is Natsu Dragneel."

He nodded at her. "Strong names. I am _tar lungHom_."

Natsu scrunched his nose. "Yeah, I can't say that."

Lucy frowned at him. "You could at least try, you know."

The thief shook his head adamantly. "No way. I'm just gonna end up insulting him. Trust me."

"Fine," she tutted. "Well, it roughly translates to 'Cobra.' Is it alright if we call you that?" she asked the scarred warrior.

"I have no objections."

"There you go," Lucy said, turning back to Natsu. "You shouldn't have any problems with that."

"Nah, that's a cool name!" He grinned at Cobra.

"I wear it with pride," Cobra said. He tilted his head again, as if listening to something. "You came with the new prisoners, did you not?"

"Oh yeah, we did," Natsu said. "Didn't wanna get out asses pummeled out there though, so we ran in here."

"I see. Then it is good that you left, for the guards are coming. They will break up the fight shortly, and it will not be a pleasant scene to behold."

Lucy furrowed her brow. "Wait, do you just know that from the usual occurrences around here, or can you actually tell somehow?"

Cobra smiled slightly. "You are observant. Yes, I can tell they are coming. Their footsteps are quite loud."

"What, you mean you can hear them coming?" Natsu exclaimed. "Over that racket?"

"My hearing is better than most, even among Klingons," he replied.

"So _cool!_ "

Lucy rolled her eyes. Even in a cave in the coldest penal colony known to man, Natsu's maturity levels were still barely at adolescence. And yet she had to admit that Cobra's ability _was_ pretty cool, for barely a few seconds had passed before she heard loud, rough voices calling for order in the main cave followed by what sounded like tasers. In effort to escape the roundup, a few prisoners escaped into the same cave that Lucy and Natsu were in, sweating and breathing heavily.

"That was a close one," one said.

"Tell me about it," another remarked. "Those guards are brutal. Man, this sucks. Why'd I hafta get sent here of all places?"

The two of them continued to mutter unhappily to themselves, but Lucy's attention was held by the third prisoner that had come in with them. He or she was tiny, barely over a foot off the ground. They were facing the other direction though, so she couldn't get a good look. She did, however, hear it complaining in a rather squeaky voice.

"Aw, I really could use some fish now. I'll bet this stupid place doesn't have any, either."

Upon hearing this comment, Natsu stiffened beside her. "Happy?" he asked.

The little figure turned around. "Natsu?"

"Happy!" he roared. "I've found you!"

"Natsuuuu!" Happy wailed and flung himself into the thief's open arms. "Waaaa, I missed you so much!"

"Me too, little buddy!" Natsu sobbed.

Under normal circumstances, Lucy would have found the scene before her to be heart-wrenchingly sweet, but she was too busy staring at Natsu's elusive friend. Because where she had been expecting to see a somewhat human-like face was instead… a cat.

With blue fur.

And talking.

Natsu's best friend was a talking blue cat.

Well, that at least explained why he'd kept the cat food.

For a while she simply ogled the two reunited friends bawling over each other, until she felt a light tap on her shoulder. She turned around to see Cobra staring at the crying pair with a questioning look.

"They're best friends," Lucy explained before he could ask. "They were separated when Happy—the cat—took the fall for him during a robbery gone wrong."

"Ah, I see now," he said. "You came here to rescue your friend."

"How did you know?" Lucy asked, startled. She hadn't intended to mention that fact, as it would lead to questions about their method of escaping.

"I've seen many beings come to this place," he replied calmly, "and they all had the same look in their eyes: the look of defeat. When one is captured, it breaks their spirit. But you two, you had an aura of determination about you, and your eyes spoke of a purpose. You are not like the others who come here. That is why I spoke to you," he added. "I would not have done so had you not piqued my curiosity."

"Oh," she said perplexedly, not sure what to say. "Um, thanks?"

"However, now that your goal is achieved, you will be attempting to escape." He said it more as a statement than a question.

"Er…"

"I take it you have a plan, as it would have been completely pointless to come here without one."

"Yeah we do, but we still need to work some stuff out." Lucy glanced back at her partner, but he was still busy wailing together with Happy. She figured he wasn't going to be of much use for a while. Shrugging mentally, she faced Cobra once more. "In fact, I guess I should ask you: do you know where the energy reactor for the magnetic shield is?"

"I do," he answered simply.

She waited. "…and?"

"I will help you, for a price."

"We're kind of short on money at the moment..."

He shook his head. "It is not money I seek. Rather, it is my freedom."

Lucy frowned. "Wait, you mean..?"

"Yes. I will help you if you take me with you."

"Orrrr maybe we could just wait a few days until we find it on our own," Lucy suggested nervously.

"That is unwise," Cobra said. "The first few days are when the guards are on the highest alert, for that is when most attempts at rebellion are made. The new prisoners get a feel of the place and think that they can overthrow the establishment before they are forced to work. On the first day, however, everyone, including the guards, are exhausted. No one tries anything on the first day. That is why if you are to successfully escape, you will need to do it now. You do not have time to spend running aimlessly about the complex unless you wish to stay here for a prolonged period of time."

Her shoulders slumped. "That's not a particularly appealing prospect, no." Then she gave him a shrewd look. "How do I know that you're not gonna try and slit our throats the minute we get out of here, though? I mean, you _are_ in a penal colony for a reason."

"I am a Klingon," he said. "I could never commit an act as dishonorable such as that."

She cocked her head, considering this. Klingons _were_ noted to be incredibly honorable and immensely proud of that fact; she even had heard somewhere they Klingons could be excommunicated and shunned for life if they betrayed a comrade. She supposed it would probably be alright to trust him, but she had to check with her fellow crewmate first.

And that meant getting his attention.

"Hold on a second, please," she said to Cobra, and strode over to the two friends. The little blue cat was asking Natsu through heavy tears why he was here in Rura Penthe.

"You didn't get caught after all of that, did you?" he sobbed pitifully.

"Nah, I came to rescue ya, Happy!" Natsu said.

Happy was clearly confused. "But you came here, and now you're stuck with me. How is that a rescue?"

Natsu grinned at his friend. "We've got a plan, don't you worry."

"We?"

"Oh that's right, you haven't met Lucy yet! Oi Luce, c'mere, I wanna—oh," he said in surprise as he realized that Lucy was standing a foot away from him. "Hey Lucy, I wanna introduce you to Happy. Happy," he said to the cat, "this is Lucy. I met her a few weeks after we got separated. She's really weird but she's also super smart, and she said she'd help me get ya outta here."

Happy looked at her with big dark eyes. "Hi Lucy," he said tremulously. His gaze darted back to Natsu. "Two weeks without me and you're already making new friends? I see how much you value me."

Natsu looked insulted. "Hey, I didn't plan on it! It was an accident."

"How was it an accident?"

"He kidnapped me," Lucy said dryly.

Happy's mouth fell open in shock. "Natsu! How could you?"

"Like I said, it was an accident! I didn't _mean_ to take her with."

"I hate to interrupt your comedy routine," Cobra interjected. "But if you are to make a decision, it will need to be soon. The guards are nearly done in the main room and will come to gather those of us in here shortly."

"Decision?" Natsu narrowed his eyes. "What's he talking about?"

Lucy quickly explained Cobra's condition for helping them and included what she knew about the honor of Klingons. Natsu barely seemed to think it over before he nodded enthusiastically.

"I got no problem with that! The sooner we're outta this place the better, and I don't mind helping out some poor sap stuck on this hunk of ice."

"Excellent," the Klingon said approvingly. "Perhaps you wish to tell me exactly how you intend to flee this place, so that I may properly navigate us through."

Lucy hesitated. This was the moment of truth—how much did they trust this quiet warrior? It was to his advantage to try and help them escape, but if he betrayed them…She glanced at Nastu, who nodded at her. They were going for it.

She nodded once back at him and began to lay out their plan to Cobra and Happy, quietly so that they wouldn't be overheard. When she finished, Cobra looked grudgingly impressed.

"That is… bold," he said.

"More like completely nuts!" Happy chimed in, but shrank under the weight of Lucy's glare. "I mean, uh… but if it'll get us outta here, I'm all for it."

"Good," she said, and looked to Cobra. "So what do we do?"

He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I think our best course of action is for you to join the prisoners in their daily mining," he said. "Normally fresh arrivals are given their first day off to adjust to the prison and they start the next day, but no one will question you if you simply start working with the others."

"What'll that do for us?" Natsu asked.

"During a certain part of the work, one has to pass relatively close to the main reactor in order to acquire the tools needed. If we set off a distraction, we should be able to slip away and head for the core."

"A distraction?" Lucy echoed. "That doesn't sound too reliable."

"Leave that to us!" Happy chirped, leaping onto Natsu's shoulder in an impossible high jump.

"Yeah, Happy and I are the kings of distractions," Natsu agreed cheerfully.

"That is _so_ not comforting," Lucy muttered.

"Then it is agreed?" said Cobra. "The plan shall commence as discussed?"

They all nodded their agreement. "Yeah!"

He finally stood from his alcove in the wall and began to head for the back of the cave that led to another tunnel. "Then we must go now, before the guards come to collect you."

They followed him out of the cave down several dark and winding tunnels until they heard loud voices and the clanging of metal coming up before them. Pausing at the exit of the tunnel, Cobra turned to face his fellow conspirators.

"You should raise your hoods now," he instructed. "The guards will be suspicious if they do not recognize you, but many prisoners wear their hoods because of the cold. This way they will not question you."

Nodding in unison they raised their hoods and pulled them low over their faces. Once satisfied, Cobra led them out into the open.

They emerged into a wide, open area filled with shouting guards herding prisoners into what appeared to be small carts on a set of tracks that connected to form a train of sorts. The prisoners were each climbing into the carts in varying groups, depending on the size of each individual.

"Come," Cobra ordered, and together they shuffled towards an empty cart, each keeping their heads down as they did so. The cart was somewhat on the small side, but fortunately each of them could fit in relatively comfortably.

Mere moments after them settling down the cart beneath them lurched and began to trundle forwards with the rest of the train. Lucy watched their surroundings with wide eyes. They passed through even more dark tunnels (seriously, did they not believe in electricity? Or at least torches?) and she could make out little. However, every few seconds a bright flash of light would illuminate the tunnels and almost blind her. Eyes watering, she managed to make out the figures of people carving out parts of the rocks of the tunnels around them. Some were using a sort of machine that kept issuing that bright light, while others were using smaller tools that sparked as they worked. Lucy wondered how they saw what they were doing, but when her vision was being impaired by the flashing lights and darkness everywhere, she saw that the prisoners were wearing helmets with dim red lights on them.

Suddenly the cart ground to a halt, causing Happy to nearly fly out of it. Steam poured out of the gears of the carts. People began leaping out of them and heading to a massive bin situated in a large hollow space to the left of where they were sitting.

The four of them also climbed out of the cart and headed towards the bin. Cobra motioned for them stick close to him.

"Take what I take," he murmured, "and try to copy my movements. New prisoners are supposed to be initiated tomorrow, so everyone here knows what to do. Just...follow my lead and try not to arouse too much suspicion until we get back into the transport carts."

Slowly they made their way forward to the bin and managed to peek inside. It was filled to the brim with strange tools that Lucy couldn't even imagine what one would do with them. She saw Cobra scoop up several of them and she grabbed the same ones and handed them to Natsu, who was standing behind her. She didn't exactly trust him to pay attention close enough to get the right tools, so she figured she might as well do it for him, and Happy as well.

After that they headed down a path that led to a room filled with rocks jutting out. This one was normally lit so they could actually see. Cobra pulled out his tools and began to fiddle with them, turning different knobs and pressing switches. Lucy fumbled with her tools, trying to copy him. Finally she managed to get them to look like his, and she looked up in time to see him aim the thinnest of the tools at a cleft in the rock and fire a beam of light at it.

Lucy leapt back slightly in shock. Lasers? But then she thought about it and shook her head, chiding herself for being silly. What else were they going to mine dilithuim with? Pickaxes?

She stared at the laser in her hand and found herself breaking out in a sweat despite the cold.

"Um, shouldn't we have special gloves or something on before we use this?" she whispered to Cobra timidly.

"There would not be much point to it," he replied. "The sparks merely sting, and if you are unfortunate enough to have your hand struck by the beam, than no mere glove will help you."

"Oh." Swallowing heavily, she glanced at Natsu and Happy on the other side of her. They had already figured out how the lasers worked and were mining away, but not paying much attention to it. They were deep in conversation, whispers so muted she couldn't make out a word.

Something grabbed her hood roughly and shook her. She let out a startled yelp and twisted around to see a brutish looking guard with overly-pale skin and four eyes leering down at her.

"Do you think the crystals are going to mine themselves?" he growled harshly and tightened his hold on her hood, choking her.

"N-no," she gasped. In the corner of her eye she saw Natsu try to make a move towards her but Cobra flung his arm out, stopping him.

"Oh?" the guard hissed. "Then _get a move on!_ " He slammed her head down into the nearest rock so hard that the world went black for a moment. A searing pain lanced through her mouth, and she realized she must have bitten her tongue. She blinked, trying to banish the stars in her vision, and felt something wet trickle down her cheek. Her gloved fingers flew to her face and she drew them back, staring at the red liquid shining on them. Blood. She'd cut her cheek on the rock.

"Lucy!" Natsu exclaimed, but still Cobra restrained him.

"Do not," he warned.

"Listen to your Klingon friend, pinky," the guard sneered. "Or you can get the same treatment as her for slacking."

"'S okay," Lucy said thickly, waving a hand in his direction. "'M fine. Jus' work." Frowning, she spat a glob of blood and saliva from her tongue onto the floor beside her.

Furious, Natsu stared at the guard with a fiery glare, but said no more and turned back towards the rocks. The guard grinned his approval and with a final dismissive kick in Lucy's direction, stalked off to supervise the rest of the prisoners.

Lucy could tell that the others wanted to check on her but at the same time felt the hard gaze of the guards on their backs, so instead they worked in unhappy silence. Lucy shook her head a couple times and picked up the laser from where she'd dropped it when she struck the rock. As she began to carve away at the crystals before her, she tentatively moved her tongue around in her mouth. She had only bitten the edge of it, so while it hurt like hell, it shouldn't swell up to the point where she'd be unable to talk. And while her head was splitting and she had to keep swiping at her cheek to keep the blood from dripping onto the rocks, she was still able to focus reasonable well on the task before her, so she figured the damage wasn't too bad. Although, she'd feel a lot better once she was back in the _Torus's_ medbay where she could be sure.

Lucy didn't know how long they stood in that cold cave, mining away. The process was excruciatingly meticulous, requiring incredible precision when mining so as not to damage the crystals. Then they had to place the crystal gently into a small bucket near them and make sure that none of the crystals scratched each other. One prisoner accidentally broke a crystal, and while Lucy didn't see what the guards did to him, she did hear the shrieks of pain and closed her eyes briefly, trying to block them out. Fortunately, none of her group drew any more attention from the guards and they were able to work in relative peace.

Finally after what seemed like ages, the prisoners began to pack their things up and carefully—ever so carefully—load the buckets of crystals into the carts with them.

"This is it," Cobra said to Natsu and Happy as they loaded theirs. "For all our sakes I hope you have a plan, because when the cart turns around three bends, that is when we will need to make our exit."

Natsu glanced at Happy, who looked at his friend and nodded. Natsu turned back to Cobra and grinned. "We're ready to rock."

"Good," Lucy said, already in the cart. "Then get over here and let's do this."

Natsu hopped in first and gave her a questioning look. "Are you okay from what that bastard did to you?"

She gave a slight nod and a smile. "I'm fine, don't worry about me. We need to give all our attention to this next part."

He nodded and they waited for the other two to climb in as well. Lucy glanced around to make sure no one was looking, and together with Natsu, swiftly knelt by their feet. Digging around in the multiple layers of clothing she was currently wearing, she withdrew the lock-picking kit that she'd hid on the ship from the pocket of Natsu's jacket and handed it to the thief. She straightened as quickly and possible and looked around again. Thank the stars, there still wasn't anyone looking at them.

Lucy felt the weight of the shackles around her ankles fall away, and she knew Natsu had successfully removed them. Barely a minute later, he rose with a giant smirk on his face. The kit had disappeared.

Cobra looked impressed. "You are quite skilled in your trade, Natsu Dragneel."

He raised an eyebrow. "My trade?"

"Your name was well known throughout the galaxy even before I was imprisoned. The infamous Natsu Dragneel of the Fairy Tail thieves guild."

Natsu scratched the back of his head with a pleased grin. "Well whaddaya know Happy, he's heard of me!"

"Of course he has," Happy said smugly. "You're the best, after all."

"Got that right! Eat that, Fullbuster!"

"Natsu," Lucy said sharply. "The carts are starting to move."

Immediately he snapped to attention, Happy leaping onto his shoulder. They went forward into the darkness of the next tunnel and Lucy could no longer see what the duo were doing. She strained her eyes, trying to glean something from the darkness, but the rattling and shaking of the cart were causing her already throbbing head to hurt so badly that she thought she was going to throw up. This was not good—she needed to be alert for whatever crazy stunt her partners were going to pull, but she could barely hold herself together enough to stop herself from keeling over on the spot. That guard had really done a number on her with that head slam, and it was worse than she'd initially thought.

The cart made the first turn, and something whistled by her and hit another something with a heavy clang. "Great going, Happy!" she heard Natsu say, and Happy gave a cheer in reply. Being in the dark was really beginning to frustrate her, and what was worse, all she could was wait.

The whole ride seemed to slow down, even though they kept the same pace.

Her head was going to break, and the damn cart kept rattling.

The freezing wind rushed by, blowing her hood off.

The cart made another turn.

One more now.

Blood streamed down her cheek, but she couldn't let go of the edge of the cart to wipe it away.

Natsu was cursing, and she didn't want to know why.

Her tongue was still sending sharp signals of pain to her brain.

They hit a bump and Lucy nearly fell over the edge, but Cobra caught her.

She was pretty sure she was going to vomit any moment now.

And she was still freaking cold.

The cart started to turn again.

"Get ready," she heard Happy say, and then Natsu yelled loudly, "Hold on!"

She gripped the edge of the cart even tighter than before.

Then the track exploded.

Lucy went flying from the cart as the world lit up in an outburst of yellow and orange and slammed into something hard and cold, presumably the ground. There was screaming and yelling all around her and her head fucking _hurt._ Her body decided that she'd had enough and she rolled over and heaved the contents of her stomach all over the floor beside her. She flipped back and groaned, not wanting to move. Then someone was shaking her and yelling her name.

"Miss Heartfillia!" A rough male voice called. "You must rise, immediately!"

 _Oh,_ she thought hazily. _I think that's Cobra yelling my name. I should probably listen to him._ She tried to stand up, but was having trouble getting her limbs to listen to her brain. A hand yanked her up by the arm and she stumbled after it.

Suddenly, something freezing cold and wet splashed in her face and she gasped, which naturally led to her coughing her guts up. She blinked and peered up at the scowling Klingon before.

"This must work," he growled. "That was my last bottle of clean water. Now hurry!"

The water stung against her face and wound in the freezing air, but it did succeed in bringing her back to herself. She shook her head slightly and ran after Cobra.

The tracks had been completely demolished, and there was fire and smoke everywhere. Prisoners were panicking and the guards were running back and forth screaming instructions and trying to assemble some sort of order, but it wasn't working very well. Lucy tried to locate Natsu and Happy in the chaos, but could barely see clearly more than three feet in front of her.

"Where're Natsu and Happy?" she yelled to Cobra over the din, but he didn't reply. Instead, he continued to pull her through the flaming wreckage around them. Finally, they reached a narrow passageway that branched off from the corridor the tracks stretched through. He tried to pull her through this one as well but she resisted.

"Hold on, we have to wait for Natsu—"

"You must come now, they will see us!"

"I have to wait for Natsu, I can't leave without him!" She twisted her head back, scanning the disaster behind them. "Natsu!" she shouted. "Where are y—"

The call died in her throat when she looked above the fire and smoke to see Natsu floating high above the guards, who were yelling and cursing fluently at him. How the hell was he—

Her eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.

Happy was holding him.

And flapping furiously out of Happy's back were a pair of small, white wings.

Wings.

That goddamn cat could fly.

"Wha—"

Happy and Natsu swooped down on top of the guards, who let out cries of shock and pain as Natsu rained furious blows upon them. Another guard ran up from down the corridor and took aim at the flying thief, but Happy flipped Natsu up into the air and dodged the beam shot at them. Natsu reached into his clothes and yanked out one of the ion blasters that they'd brought with them from the _Torus_ and shot the guard with the weapon. The guard flinched when the crackling blue light hit him and tried to return fire, but to no avail. The ion blaster had disabled his weapon.

Natsu saw Lucy and Cobra standing in the shadows and pointed them out to Happy. The two of them flew over to where they stood and landed with a light thud.

"That big enough of a distraction for ya?" the thief asked lightly.

"What the hell _is_ that?!" Lucy shrieked, thrusting her hands out at Happy helplessly.

He tilted his head. "Um, it's Happy. I introduced him to you earlier, remember?"

"Bad memory, huh?" the cat said.

"No, that's not what I—" she broke off with a small yelp as Cobra yanked her forwards and they began to run down the tunnel together. "I meant," she continued, gasping for breath, "what kind of freak of nature do you have for a best friend?"

"What does that mean?" Natsu asked in confusion, jogging effortlessly beside her.

"It's a talking blue cat with wings that can fly and carry things ten times its weight. I ask again: what the actual hell did I sign up to rescue?"

"Oh, I didn't tell you? Happy's an Exceed. They're a species native to my home planet. They can all talk and fly, and each have their own little abilities. Some can predict the future, others can grow to like ten times their size, and Happy can carry huge weights. Like me!" He rolled his eyes in exasperation. "I could've sworn I told you about him."

"Trust me," Lucy said fervently. "If you'd said something about him before, I would remember." Cobra made a sharp turn down another tunnel and they followed him.

"You're not very nice, Larry," Happy said, flying by her the other side of her head. She screamed and instinctively tried to swat him out of the air. He dodged effortlessly and wagged a paw at her. "You're calling me mean stuff and trying to hit me."

"What the hell, cat?" she bellowed. "Don't sneak up on me like that! And my name's LUCY, not Larry! God, it's Natsu all over again!"

"Enough of this," Cobra cut in, skidding to a halt in front of a metal door. "This is the door to the reactor room."

Natsu cracked his knuckles gleefully. "I've got a fire in my belly now! You ready, Luce?"

She pulled out the ion blaster that she'd also stowed away in her clothing and nodded. "Just as soon as we can get this door open. It looks like it needs a key of some sort."

Natsu examined the lock with a critical eye. "I can pick it, but it'll take some time that we probably don't have. Better if I just smash it open."

Lucy frowned. "Natsu, that's a foot-thick metal door, probably iron or steel of some sort. There's no way you could—" The words died in her mouth as Natsu took a run at the hinges of the door and gave them an almighty kick. Her jaw slowly fell open as the door shook with the impact and came crashing down.

"Holy shit," she squeaked. She knew Natsu was strong, but this? He just broke down a metal door meant to stop phasers from blasting through with just one kick. What _was_ he?

Natsu and Cobra bolted through the door and she followed them with Happy flying above her head. Inside the room was an enormous power core and several control stations with two guards manning them. They yelled in shock as the four of them charged in and tried to fire their weapons at them, but Lucy and Natsu shot them both, disabling their weapons. Then Cobra darted in around them and knocked one guard out cold with a roundhouse kick and, leaping to the other guard in almost the same instant, smoothly broke his neck.

"Waaa, this guy's scary!" Happy cried.

The scarred warrior raised an eyebrow at the Exceed. "I am a Klingon," he said calmly. "It would be shameful if I could not dispose of them with relative ease."

Natsu ran over to the control panels and began frantically typing in commands. A few seconds passed before he slammed his fists onto the consoles in frustration.

"Damn it," he growled. "All this shit's encoded and I have no idea what it could be. Hell, I don't even know what language it would be in. Again, I could probably hack it if I had the time and equipment, but…"

Happy fluttered over to land on the panel. "So what do we do?" he asked nervously.

Natsu hung his head. "I don't know. It didn't occur to me that this stuff would be password protected."

"So we have no way to lower the field," Cobra stated.

A black shadow passed over the thief's usually cheery face. "I don't see how. I'm sorry, everyone. I got us into this, and I screwed up."

Lucy listened to him talk with growing dismay. If Natsu of all people was giving up, then they didn't have a butterfly in a blizzard's chance of surviving. Narrowing her eyes, she strode over to where he was standing and grabbing his head with her free hand, forced it face her.

"Oh no," she said firmly. "You are _not_ —I repeat, _not_ —giving up on me. You promised, remember? You promised you'd get me back home no matter what, so that's what you're going to do."

His expression was still panicked and unsure of himself.

"Think. Come on, you're the expert thief here. Surely you've been in worse scrapes than this. I know you'll get us out of this."

He blinked slowly at her, and she saw the resolve begin to creepy back into the depths of his onyx eyes.

"There we go," she said, and smiled at him.

Strong fists slammed together as Natsu nodded, thinking furiously.

"Fine," he said aloud. "What do we have to work with?"

"You, me, a flying cat and a badass Klingon," Lucy said.

"Your lock-picking kit and two awesome ion blasters," Happy offered.

"And seven, no, eight guards heading in our direction who will be here within minutes," Cobra added, listening intently.

"Great," Natsu muttered. He began to look around the room, taking in their surroundings once more. He ran over to the reactor core and began to inspect it, examining its mechanics and wirings. "This thing's freakishly well built; I guess they wanted it to last. Okay, there's got to be something. Something, something, c'mon…" He squinted at a section of the reactor wiring on the ceiling and frowned.

"You'd best hurry," Cobra warned. "They will be here in mere moments."

"Lucy, gimme your ion blaster," Natsu said suddenly. She hurried over to him and handed it over. He spun both blasters around in his hands a couple of times, deep in thought, before flipping them straight up and firing at the wires he had been staring so intently at.

The instant the blue lights hit the wires, they flared to life and crackled, spreading through the entire system. The reactor lit up with a bright blue before letting out a whining noise and going completely dead.

"Yeah baby!" Natsu yelled. "That's how we do it in Natsu's town!"

Lucy ran over to Cobra and grabbed his arm. "Don't let go of me," she told him urgently, and as he nodded she saw Happy flying over to grab Natsu as well.

"Let's get outta here," Natsu cheered, and both he and Lucy slapped the transporter chips they had stuck onto their clothes before they'd left. For a terrifying instant nothing seemed to happen, and then the world began to shimmer and dissolve before her eyes. The next thing she knew she was staring at the familiar green lights of the _Torus's_ transporter room, and her knees collapsed underneath her with relief.

"We…we did it," she stammered hoarsely. "We made it back." Numb fingers released their grip on Cobra's arm, and she simply sat on the pod, breathing heavily.

"Woo-HOO, suck on that, ya Federation bastards!" Natsu roared, jumping into the air and pumping his fist. "That's what happens when you try to stick my best friend on some frozen rock!"

"I doubt that we are entirely out of the clear just yet," Cobra said. "They do have some planetary defenses and will most likely use them once they detect us."

"Why would they see us now?" Lucy asked. "We've been here for a while and they never noticed us before."

"We had to have transported somewhere, no?" the Klingon said intelligently. "They will see this ship and probably rather blast us out of the stars than see us escape successfully."

"Man, they don't wanna give it a rest, do they?" Happy said, wrinkling his little cat-nose.

"Then I'm getting us outta here!" Natsu said, dashing out of the room. "Oh, and Lucy," he added, sticking his head back in. "Don't worry about the rest of this; I'll get us away without a problem. You go to the medbay and take care of yourself, okay?"

She nodded and he grinned.

"Great. Now c'mon Happy, don't you wanna see the final stage of our daring escape?"

"Daring is one way of putting it," Happy remarked as he flew out of the room after his friend.

Lucy and Cobra remained alone in the transporter room. After the mayhem of the past few hours, the silence was deafening.

He looked down at her. "You are in poor condition," he observed. "You should take your partner's advice and care for yourself."

"Yeah, I will, I just want to make sure…" she trailed off as the floor beneath them began to hum with their entrance into a warp jump. "There we go," she said with a smile. "Now we've really escaped."

"Indeed," Cobra said softly. "I never thought I'd see the day. You broke out of Rura Penthe with two other prisoners with barely any supplies and a foolish plan. Truly, you have achieved the impossible."

"Yeah, we seem to have been doing a lot of that lately."

But Lucy wasn't going to complain. Not one word.

* * *

 **A/N: They successfully infiltrated and escaped the feared penal asteroid of Rura Penthe! Yay!**

 **I really, really hope this was at least semi-realistic and makes some kind of sense. I tried to describe and capture the horror of Rura Penthe without dragging it out, because while prisons are cool, I really didn't want them to spend too much time here. They needed to drop in, grab Happy, and get out. Cobra kind of just tagged along for the ride.**

 **So please, PLEASE let me know what you think about this chapter? Was it good? Okay? A messy, jumbled disaster? I've never written anything like this before and tried my hardest, but sometimes it just doesn't work.**

 **Welp, I hope you enjoyed it either way, regardless of the quality. As usual, thanks so much for reading!**


	8. Etherious Natsu Dragneel

**A/N: I'm really sorry this is so late, but August has come around and I'm fairly busy. I'm on my last (thankfully long) vacation until the end of the month, and then I resume school. This means that I'm going to have a lot less time to write, so my updates will most likely be limited to once or (hopefully) twice a month. You probably won't get another one this month, but I should have one ready by the beginning of September. Thank you as usual for reading and putting up with my wonky schedule, and I hope you like this chapter. Also, it's 2 am and I haven't edited this once but I felt so bad that I haven't updated that I just want to get it up. So, sorry for any mistakes. Now, enjoy!**

* * *

Lucy had never been so glad in her entire life to have a ship equipped with a fully functional medbay. Cobra had to help her get through the ship because her head was swimming too badly and by the time she did get there she could barely tell the difference between a hypospray and a cellular regenerator. But in the end she did manage to figure out what was what and mostly patch herself up. Happy and Cobra also came in for some treatment, as they had several nasty scrapes, some of which looked to be weeks old and were infected. Lucy had never been a fan of pus and almost threw up again treating the odd duo, but managed to clean them up as well.

Sometime later after cleaning themselves up, the four of them convened in the bridge, as they weren't sure where else to go. Natsu and Lucy sat at their seats at the helm while Cobra leaned against the wall and Happy sat on the floor eating a fish that he'd had the food replicator produce.

"I've never been so happy to see a fish in my whole life," the little Exceed said blissfully as he gnawed on the tail. He had removed the filthy robes he had been wearing in the prison and revealed that he was indeed completely blue save a white oval around his stomach. He had also managed to procure a small green cloth from somewhere on the ship and tied it around his neck like a bandanna.

"Glad to supply, little buddy," Natsu said. "I hope you never have to go short again."

"I wish to thank you both once more for freeing me," Cobra said solemnly. He too had shed the many layers they had met him in and stood in the clothes he had underneath: a gray military-like uniform with a simple belt, two straps across his broad chest, and shoulder pads that extended slightly over his shoulder to create two shells. "I had thought that I was doomed to never see the stars again."

"No problem," the rosy-haired thief replied. "We never would've made it out without ya. Come to think of it," he added, his eyes lighting up, "you're pretty handy in a pinch; we could really use someone like you here. Do you wanna join our crew?"

Lucy's head whipped around to stare at her partner so hard she cricked her neck. _Join_ them? A dangerous and completely unknown convict who could probably kill them both in one motion without even trying? Sure, he had helped them escape the penal colony and had proved to be reliable during the escape, but that had been beneficial to himself. Who was to say he would keep that same noble attitude light years away from any watching eye?

Also, Lucy wasn't entirely sure she trusted his whole "I am a Klingon, and therefore could never do something as dishonorable as betray you" shtick. Yes, most Klingons were trustworthy and would keep their word, but then again most Klingons would rather die than let themselves be captured and sent to a prison. However, Cobra had apparently been in Rura Penthe for quite some time and seemed to be quite comfortable with that idea. How else was he different from the rest of his species? Enough to lie to them, perhaps. Lucy may have been acting with extreme suspicion, but she'd rather be seen as a paranoid madwoman than be gutted in her sleep.

"Natsu…" she began warningly, but Cobra spoke first.

"I thank you for your offer, but there are things that I have to do," he said. "Duties I must fulfill, people I must see. Surely you understand that?"

Natsu pouted. "Yeah, I guess. That's a shame, though. It would be so nice to have someone like you with us if we got boarded again."

"I think you will be alright," Cobra said amiably. "You seemed to handle yourself quite well down in the prison. You have the makings of a fine warrior."

"Really?" Natsu scratched the back of his head, seemingly quite pleased with the Klingon's assessment. "Awesome. Y'hear that, Happy? We're cut out to be warriors!"

"Aye sir!"

"So I guess you'll want to be let off somewhere, right?" Lucy said.

He nodded. "At the nearest starbase, preferably."

She glanced at Natsu, who shrugged. "Sure, that shouldn't be a problem," he said.

"Then I am once more in your debt," Cobra said.

"Nah, don't worry about it," Natsu said flippantly, and rose from his chair. "Well, if that's all figured out, then I'm gonna go to the bathroom. Luce, set a course for the nearest starbase, from here it should be the Baltigo one—oh, and make sure we don't smash headfirst into an asteroid or something, 'kay?"

She raised an eyebrow. "My pleasure," she said muttered dryly as he left.

Silence permeated the small room following his departure. Cobra seemed perfectly happy to stay leaning against the wall with his arms folded and Happy was, well, happy on the floor with his fish. Lucy stared absentmindedly at the starchart on the corner of the control panel, wondering if she ought to take advantage of the quietness.

"Hey Cobra," she said at last. He looked up at her. "If you don't mind me asking, why were you on Rura Penthe?"

"Because like most prisoners down there, I had been convicted of a crime."

"But don't most Klingons prefer death over capture? I'd heard stories of Klingons even killing themselves in prisons rather than bear the shame of living in captivity."

A shadow seemed to pass over his scarred face. "I did not have that option. As I told your friend, there are still things I must do in this life."

"Are there?" she said skeptically. "And what do they include, pray tell?"

He tilted his head. "Why do you wish to know?"

"Because if it's something like: 'I have to complete my mission to rid the world of a certain species,' or 'I must spread the light by killing people' sort of thing, I'm not particularly inclined to let you back into the universe."

"'Spread the light?'"

"I don't know, the usual things that psychos like to use to excuse their actions. Ever hear of Obliteration? Guy that went nuts and nuked half a planet because he was convinced that was his God-given mission in life? It's stuff like that I'm worried about."

If she didn't know better, she would have sworn she saw him give the slightest of smiles. "I assure you Miss Heartfillia, I am not a deranged murderer, nor am I a threat to the safety of any planets. I was imprisoned for tangling with a man in a high political position. I was inadequately prepared for our encounter and suffered the consequences."

Her curiosity was piqued. "Who'd you go up against?"

His eyes flickered down from her face to her chest. At first she thought he was staring at her somewhat large assets and was fully prepared to smack him across the face, powerful Klingon or no, but then she realized that was staring at the torn Federation uniform that was visible beneath her jacket, not her.

"I think it is better that you don't know," he said quietly.

"What? Why?"

"Hey Lucy," Happy spoke up. She jumped a little, as she'd forgotten he was there. "If he says that you shouldn't know, I'd take him at his word."

"What makes you so sure I should?"

"Political stuff is nasty business," the Exceed said shrewdly as he chewed on his fish. He'd gotten thought about half of it. "I'm telling you, it's the worst kind of trouble. Natsu and I got stuck in some once, and it's still causing us trouble even today. If Cobra got involved in someone high up, then it's definitely better for all of us if he keeps it to himself." His round eyes turned to the Klingon. "Am I right?"

"Unfortunately in this case, very much so."

"So there ya go," Happy said. "Let him keep his secrets for all our sakes."

Lucy blinked. This was a side to Happy she had not been expecting. All she had seen of him so far was an annoying, crying, snide flying cat that seemed far too cheerful in dire circumstances. Now, however, he was showing reasonable intelligence as well as a finely honed instinct for self-preservation. Would wonders never cease.

"Alright," she sighed, and turned back to the helm. Not knowing was going to drive her crazy, but she'd get over it. Pulling up the star chart for that sector, she inputted the data for the Baltigo starbase. Frowning slightly to herself, she also set the ship to autopilot so that it would detect any oncoming missiles (including asteroids) and avoid them. Natsu really had a low opinion of her piloting skills if he thought she couldn't manage to set the ship on auto. Maybe this would show him.

And speaking of showing Natsu, she still had a promise to keep…

OOOOO

Natsu exited the bathroom of his quarters, yawning slightly. The last time any of them had gotten sleep was far longer than they liked, and it was taking its toll on him. He raked his hand through his hair, mussing it up so that it stuck out in even crazier spikes, and headed towards the door. He stopped, however, when something in the corner of his room caught his eye. Raising an eyebrow, he squinted into the shadows, trying to determine if he'd actually seen something or it was just his imagination.

That moment of hesitation cost him dearly. Lucy leaped out from her hiding place behind the chair and grabbed Natsu roughly by the hair and yanked him towards the door. He yelled in pain and squirmed furiously, trying to dislodge her.

"What the hell, Lucy?" he yelped, twisting back and forth, but Lucy's grip on his hair was as strong as iron. "Ow, leggo of me, it hurts! Damn it, let go!"

"Did you forget what I said already?" she grunted as she pulled him out of his room and dragged him down the hallway. "I promised that if we got out of that ice prison alive, I was going to kill you!"

"I thought that was a joke!"

"Well you thought wrong then, didn't you? Time to die, Dragneel!"

"No wait—stop—ow-ow-ow, that really hurts!" He flung himself at the walls, fingers scrabbling uselessly against the smooth surface as he tried to slow their progress. "Lucyyyy, don't do it! I'm sorry!"

"It's too late for apologies. Suffer the consequences of your actions and take your punishment like a man!" She began pulling him into her room.

"I don't wanna be a man if it means you're gonna kill me!" he wailed. He clawed at the frame of the doorway to her room, shouting desperately, "Happy, help me! She's gonna kill me, hel—" His voice was cut off by the closing of the door.

Back at the bridge, Happy's ears pricked upwards as he heard Natsu's voice faintly calling for help. Surprised, the little cat leaped to his feet. What was going on? Lucy had left the room, stating that she had some business to take care of, and Cobra had seemingly fallen asleep while still standing against the wall. Had something happened?

He raced out the door, flying out of the medbay only to pause in midair, flapping his wings and scratching his head. He didn't really know this ship yet, and Natsu's voice had been quite faint. A muffled thump reached his sensitive ears, and he shot in the direction of the noise. Streaking down the corridor, he found that it was coming from Lucy's room.

"Natsu! What's wrong?" he cried, bursting into the room, and once again pulled up short in midair as he took in the scene before him.

Lucy had somehow gotten a hold of some rope and tied Natsu to a chair in front of a large mirror on her wall. She stood behind him, holding a large hairbrush in her hands and pulling it roughly through the wailing thief's hair. She was smiling happily and saying in a motherly, no-nonsense voice, "Now Natsu, hold still. The more you throw yourself around like that, the more this will hurt. Honestly, do you ever brush your hair?"

"Of course I do, but not like a goddamn T-Rex like you! Aaargh stoppit stoppit stoppit, it fucking hurts!"

"Then stop moving already!"

"I will when you stop this torture," he moaned. Looking up, he saw Happy floating in the air, his nose wrinkled in confusion. "There you are Happy! Help me! This maniac's gonna murder me!"

Happy dropped to the floor. "It doesn't look like she's trying to kill you," he observed. "More like she's trying to do your hair."

"That's the same thing," cried the distraught thief.

"I dunno Natsu," Happy said. "I think your hair could use it. You know how Mira's always complaining about how stuff could be breeding in there."

"Damn it Happy, that's not the point! Now stop making stupid comments and help me! _OUCH!_ "

"Ooh, that was a bad knot," Lucy said with relish. "You wonder if there are others like that in here?"

"No, I DON'T wonder! I'd be just fine if I never knew!"

" _I_ wonder," Happy said loudly, grinning. It was obvious that the Exceed was beginning to enjoy this.

"Oh good, then let's find out together, shall we?"

"NO THANK YOU!"

"Five bucks says he squeals like a mouse on the next one," she said.

"Nah, more like a hamster. He had pet one at home when he was little and he used to stare at it for hours making the same noises it did."

"Aw, really? That's so cute."

"I did NOT! Lies and shameless slander! I ought to sue you for libel!"

"C'mon Natsu, you know you love me. After all, you did break into a notorious penal colony to rescue me."

"A fact I'm really—ouch—beginning to regret. OW!"

"Guess I owe you five bucks, cat."

OOOOO

Cobra wasn't sure how long he had been asleep against the wall of the bridge. All he knew when he woke up was that his legs were stiff and that something drastic had clearly taken place while he dozed, for upon opening his eyes he was greeted with the sight of a furious, sulking Natsu Dragneel hunched over the helm with his salmon-pink hair tied up into two neat, fluffy, spiky pigtails at the top of his head. Lucy was sitting next to him with a smug look on her face, and Happy was chortling in the back of the room.

The Klingon blinked. "It would appear that I have missed something," he said slowly. Natsu groaned and buried his face in his hands.

"Apparently Lucy swore that if they made it out of Rura Penthe alive she would kill him," Happy said cheerfully. "So she tied him up, put his hair in pigtails, and took a whole bunch of pictures."

"Death of dignity is the same thing in my book," the blonde said, smirking.

"I think I shall have to agree with you on that one," Cobra said. He was staring at Natsu's pigtails with a scandalized expression.

"I hate you all," Natsu sobbed into his hands. "I hope you all have rabid Tasmanian devils placed in your trousers."

They all reflexively scooted back. "That's not funny, Natsu," Lucy said nervously.

"Aye," Happy agreed. "And I don't even wear trousers."

"You'd deserve it, especially after this torture," Natsu said, raising his head from his hands and glaring at Lucy. "How much longer do I have to wear these stupid things?"

"Until we reach the starbase to drop Cobra off," she replied. "I don't get why you're so eager to take them out though—you look adorable in them."

He uttered his loudest groan yet, staring gloomily at the helm. "Just promise me that Gray will never find out about this, okay?"

The downtrodden thief was such a pathetic sight that Lucy decided to take pity on him. "Alright, fine. I promise that if I ever meet Gray, I won't tell him about this."

"Happy?"

"Fiiiiiiine, I won't."

Natsu sighed. "That's the best I'm gonna get, isn't it?"

Lucy nodded. "Yup. Oh," she said as the helm beeped. "Hold on, I've got something here…" She spun around to face the controls. The top left button was flashing red, indicating a call for help. "There's a distress signal coming in from the Baltigo stabase," she reported, listening intently on her earpiece. "A fire's broken out in their station and their requesting immediate assistance."

"Baltigo…" Cobra mused. "Is that not where we were heading?"

"Yeah," Lucy nodded. "Well, this sucks. Now what are we supposed to do?"

Natsu laughed gleefully. "Keep going, obviously!"

Lucy and Cobra both slowly turned their heads to stare at him.

"Sorry?" she asked. "Did you just say to head _towards_ the flaming space station?"

"You betcha."

"In case it escaped your notice Natsu, we're not exactly a fire truck here. They said the fire's spread to three levels of their station—we're not equipped to help put out a fire of that size!"

"Actually, we are," Happy said.

"Huh? What do you mean?"

He pointed at Natsu with a little blue paw. "We've got him."

Cobra tilted his head. "I do not see how one man can help in this sort of situation."

"You may not see now, but you will soon," Natsu cackled, cracking his knuckles. "Man, I'm hungry! I hope they've got enough to fill me up."

Lucy gaped at him. "Natsu, they're on FIRE. I don't think they're gonna have time to feed you." Happy started sniggering on the floor, and she glared at him. "What's so funny, cat?"

"You don't know him at all, do you?" he giggled. "Well, I'm not gonna tell you if you don't know. It'll be funnier to see your expression when you see it."

Now in addition to being thoroughly confused Lucy was becoming annoyed as well. This cat was really getting on her nerves.

"Fine, have it your way," she muttered. "If you want to get barbecued that's fine by me. No objections here." Turning back to the comm she responded to the distress signal saying clearly, "Baltigo, this is the _Torus._ We have received your signal and will arrive shortly to help."

Throwing her hand off the comm with irritation she glared at the thief. "There you go. We're diving headfirst into another hazardous situation. I hope you're happy."

"You bet I am," he grinned. He raised his hand to rake it through his hair but halted when he felt the pigtails, and his face fell. "But can I take these out now?"

"NO."

The three males knew enough not to say another word until they reached the starbase. There was a dark aura surrounding the blond officer, and none of them wanted to find out what would happen if they provoked her any further.

After several tense minutes passed they arrived at the starbase. Natsu put them in orbit and headed for the transporter room with Happy. Lucy and Cobra hurried after him.

"Are you really going to do this?" she asked anxiously.

"Yeah, why not? Like I said before, I'm hungry as hell!"

Lucy said nothing else but merely shook her head. There was no getting through to him when he made up his mind. The least she could do was come with him and make sure that he didn't kill himself. With that somewhat depressing thought in mind, she climbed onto the transporter with him. Honestly, she was seeing way too much of this room, and the medbay as well.

They materialized in a room filled with panicking people. It appeared that the station authorities were using their transporter room as a sort of safe room and as a result there was barely enough room to breathe.

A tall, thin human man with singed clothes ran up to them. "Oh, are you here to help us?" he asked breathlessly.

Natsu slammed his fists together. "Yup! Tell us where to go."

He nodded. "This way," he beckoned. They looked at each other and followed him, fighting their way through the crowd. He led them into a hallway that branched off to several corridors. Taking the one closest on the right, he ran past an elevator and opened a door to a flight of stairs.

"We're not taking the elevator?" Happy asked.

"It's out of service because of the fire," the man grunted.

They bolted up the stairs for several flights. Natsu and Cobra didn't seem to have a problem with it and Happy just flew, but after three flights Lucy's legs started to tremble and she could barely breathe. Natsu noticed her lagging behind and looked back at her.

"What's wrong?" he asked concernedly.

"Too…tired…" she gasped out. Physical activity had never really been her forte. Her heart was pounding so hard she thought it would beat right out of her chest and she could hardly stand.

"Do you need help?"

She shook her head. "No I'll be fine, I just need a minute."

He glanced back up the stairs. The others had already left them behind. "We don't really have one right now, so sorry about this Luce," he said, and in one deft motion picked her up and slung her over his shoulders. She shrieked and tried to wriggle out of his grasp but his hold on her was remarkably tight.

"Natsu, I really don't need—"

"I know ya don't Luce, but we don't have time for you to catch your breath. This is the easiest way." And with that he raced up the stairs at an astonishing speed, jumping the steps three at a time despite carrying her. She was left to wonder as he ran: how strong _was_ he, really?

He reached the others in seemingly no time at all. Shortly after, Lucy began to notice the air growing warmer around them; they must have been getting close to the fire.

The man leading them pulled up short before another door.

"The fire is just beyond here," he warned. Looking them over, he added skeptically, "Are you sure you'll be able to help?"

Natsu gently put Lucy down and nodded. "Don't worry about us, just lead the way."

"Alright, if you're sure." And with that, the man opened the door.

A huge wave of heat blasted them. Stepping through the door cautiously, they saw another corridor awash in great, roaring, hungry flames that licked the walls and devoured the floors greedily. Sections of the walls and ceiling had collapsed, making it almost impossible to navigate the corridor even without the fire.

Dismay crept down Lucy's back. This fire was far more deadly than she'd imagined. It had clearly been going for quite some time and had become quite fearsome indeed. What could the four of them do? She turned her head ask Natsu what to do and felt the question die in her throat as she watched him grin and charge straight into the flames.

She screamed. "Natsu, _NO!_ "

Stupidly she started to follow him, hoping that she'd be able to stop him in time, but Happy grabbed the collar of her jacket and held her back.

"Just wait," he said. "He'll be fine."

She obeyed, swallowing hard. The only thing she could do was watch helplessly as Natsu through the fire towards a fallen beam. He paused before it and ran his fingers over it, examining it.

Lucy couldn't understand—he was standing in the middle of a flaming corridor on a half-melted floor in the middle of scorching heat and smoke, casually touching a fallen beam glowing with heat—how was he not screaming with pain? How was he not _dead_? With a short exclamation he maneuvered underneath the beam and lifted it up, flinging it to the side so he could progress.

Her jaw dropped.

What the hell.

 _That beam must have weighed several hundred pounds, and he just…tossed it. Like a pool noodle._

Natsu moved forwards a few more feet before stopping in the middle of the corridor. The heat was so intense there that his entire figure shimmered and wavered back and forth. Cracking his knuckles and grinning, he roared, "Now this is a good spot!" He braced himself by planting his feet securely on the melting floor, opened his mouth wide, and inhaled.

Instantly the fire surrounding him seemed to be sucked in towards him, or more specifically, his open mouth. Flames and smoke swirled around him in a fiery tornado of sparks and light and dark clouds, all disappearing in the black hole that was Natsu Dragneel.

By then Lucy's open mouth had completely dried out and so had her eyes from lack of blinking. Judging by Happy's unrestrained laughter her expression was quite comical, but quite honestly at that moment she couldn't have cared less. All she could see was the man before her who was consuming the scorching flames that were running rampant on the station like they were streams of hot chocolate.

 _What the actual hell did I team up with?_

She watched as the last flickers of flame disappeared into his mouth and he closed it with a satisfied slurp. Holding his fist to his lips, he gave a large silent belch and sighed appreciatively.

"Damn, that was some good fire!" he exclaimed. He wiped his mouth and grinned at Lucy, illuminated by the glowing embers of the hallway that he had not consumed. The scene would have been wonderfully badass were it not for the two fluffy pigtails sticking up from the top of his head.

Part of her wanted to laugh hysterically at his hairdo (which was sparking slightly, making him appear like some magical girl in a child's cartoon) but it was significantly dwarfed by the other part of her that was having trouble processing the fact that _he had just eaten all the fire in the corridor._

"You—you just—" she spluttered. "I don't—what—"

Natsu jumped over some debris and strode over to stand in front of her. "What's the matter? Didja want some?"

The last vestiges of Lucy's self-control snapped and she kicked him in the ribs as hard as she could. He doubled over and rocked back and forth on the ground, clutching his side much in the same way he had back on the _Dragon._

"WHAT THE HELL?" she screamed. "First you go charging into the middle of a deadly fire without so much as a by-your-leave and then you go and EAT IT ALL! WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!"

"I don't get it," he wheezed. "What did I do? Why are you mad at me?"

"I…" Her emotions welled up in her throat and suddenly she could barely speak. She collapsed on her knees next to him and let out a sob. "You can't just run into a fire like that. I didn't know what you were doing and it scared me, okay? I thought you were trying to kill yourself or something." She swallowed. "I was really, really scared for a minute there."

He blinked. "Did you forget I was immune to fire or something?"

She gave a shaky laugh. "Natsu, I didn't know that you were. I assumed you were a normal human like me."

"A normal hu—" He inhaled sharply. "I didn't tell you what I am?"

She shook her head.

"Aw crap. Lucy I'm so sorry, I thought I told you." Taking a deep breath, he pinched the bridge of his nose. "I'm an Etherious from Alvarez. We're stronger and sturdier than humans, and we each have our own weird ability, kinda like Exceeds, who are also from Alvarez. My ability is that I'm a fire eater. I'm completely immune to heat, and I can consume any form of pure flame and convert it into energy. There was never any danger in this for me." He shook his head regretfully. "Damn, no wonder you were freaking out on the ship. I thought you were just being weird."

"Gee thanks," she sniffled. "Is there anything else important you forgot to tell me?"

For an instant something seemed to flash in his eyes but it was gone so quickly she thought she'd imagined it. "No," he answered quietly. "No, I haven't forgotten anything."

"Good," she muttered, "'cause I don't think I can take any more shocks like this."

(Later, she'd think back on those words and laugh long and hard.)

She stood once more, albeit rather shakily. She glared at Happy, who was giggling hysterically, and then at Cobra, who also seemed to be fighting back a smile.

"What?" she snapped, glowering. "I don't suppose there's something you want to tell me as well? Are you secretly a teapot or something?"

The Klingon lost the fight. "If I were," he said with a large grin that displayed his remarkably sharp teeth, "then I would be a fearsome teapot indeed."

"Ugh," she moaned miserably. "I hate you all."

Natsu laughed and also climbed to his feet. "Well," he said cheerfully, "I'm still hungry and there's still plenty more fire on this station to chow down on. You guys coming?"

OOOOO

As they followed Natsu around the station, watching him devour flame after flame, Lucy thought long and hard.

Happy was right… she really didn't know Natsu Dragneel at all. To her surprise, the thought dismayed her. She WANTED to know him, to find out more about him and what made him who he was. Or something like that. She honestly wasn't really sure anymore. Her entire life had been flipped over and she still had no idea how to set it back up. The only constant she'd had was Natsu, and that had been enough for her. But now, seeing that she didn't even really have him…the tears that had started to flow when she'd kicked him threatened to return. How had her life gotten so messed up? Why couldn't she have had a normal job and normal friends? A part of her new that she was overreacting and was being overly emotional and (let's face it) a whiny spoiled brat, but she didn't know how to help herself aside from just going back to the Federation and pretending that none of this had ever happened.

But if she did that, then could she really live with herself? She needed to grow. If she ran away from a situation just because it took her by surprise, then there was absolutely no point to her being an officer aboard a starship. She might as well have stayed home with her upstuck noble relatives. No, she would have to learn to deal. To deal, and to stop freaking out every time something unexpected popped up. And she _definitely,_ she thought ruefully, needed to stop kicking Natsu. Even if he did deserve it. Etherious or no, she wasn't sure how long his ribs would be able to withstand her repeated kicks.

At long last Natsu ate his fill, and the fire was completely eradicated from the station. Hordes of people swarmed around them thanking them for the help and offering rewards, but they wanted none of it. Natsu claimed that because they had provided such a scrumptious meal they were under no obligations to pay him back, but the authorities insisted. Finally, he relented.

"If you really wanna do something for us," he said reluctantly, "then do it for him." He jerked his thumb towards Cobra. "The guy needs a ship to get around, so help him out. We don't need anything." The Klingon raised an eyebrow with surprise, but seemed pleased with the compromise nonetheless.

Much later, Natsu, Lucy, and Happy stood back in the transporter room with Cobra, ready to depart.

"I owe you all a great debt," Cobra said, bowing low. "What you have done for me is far beyond my wildest dreams."

"Nah, it was nothing," Natsu said.

"Besides, you help us back on Rura Penthe," Lucy added.

He shook his head. "I think you would have found a way out in the end, even without my help. No, your service to me was far greater than mine to you." He held out his hand to Lucy. In it was a small emergency transponder. "I have held on to this for a long time. I give it now to you, in thanks. Should you ever need me, all you must do is press this and I will come, no matter where I am or what I am doing."

Lucy accepted it with a smile. "The way of the Klingon," she said. "They always repay their debts in full."

He nodded solemnly. "Until the honor of death takes us."

Natsu grinned. "It was nice knowing ya, Cobra. You're an awesome guy. I hope you get whatever you need done successfully."

"Aye, sir! Thanks for everything!" Happy chirped.

"It was my honor." He looked at Lucy. "Miss Heartfillia, if and when we next meet, perhaps then I will be able to tell you why I was imprisoned. Until then, do not dwell upon it too greatly."

She raised an eyebrow. "I'll try."

The tall, scarred Klingon gave a strong salute of his people by pounding his right fist to his chest and turned to leave the room. When he was at the door, however, he halted and turned back once more.

"By the way Mr. Dragneel," he said uncertainly. "Are you aware that your hair is still in pigtails?"

Natsu's cry of horror and Lucy and Happy's laughter were lost in the shimmer of light that sent them back to their ship.

OOOOO

Months later, long after Natsu had saved them from the fire, the Baltigo starbase authorities decided to dedicate a mural to their savior. On the main door to the station that was replaced after the fire they wrote neatly on the bottom: _In Honor of Natsu Dragneel, Savior of the Baltigo_ , and above it they carved an image of him grinning away that was remarkably accurate, complete with his fluttering scarf and two spiky pigtails.

* * *

 **Reviews are what make me write and give me inspiration. Please, please, please tell me what you think, and remember that I love each and every one of you awesome readers.**


	9. To be Kind

**A/N: I made it in my month time slot with three days to spare! *throws confetti* But in all seriousness, I'm really sorry this took so long to get out. School started again it's effectively brutally murdered my free time. I managed to get the majority of this written in random classes when I had a minute to spare or the teacher was rambling. Enjoy the fruits of my labor!**

* * *

When Lucy opened her eyes, it was like she was a new person.

Upon returning to the ship, Lucy decided that she'd had enough. Fatigue was weighing down on her shoulders like metal pails of water; she had never gone this long without proper sleep before. Hell, the last time she'd even closed her eyes was days ago when she'd taken a brief nap after taking the _Torus,_ and before that another small nap on the _Dragon._ And actual sleep? Not since the _Zodiac._

So she'd bid goodnight to Natsu and Happy, ambled her way over to her quarters, kicked off her boots, and promptly collapsed onto her bed. Now she woke up feeling still tired somewhat, yet remarkably refreshed compared to before. Blinking blearily, she squinted at the clock and saw that she had been asleep for fourteen hours.

 _Geez,_ she thought to herself as she stretched, _I haven't slept that long since I was a teenager. All this crazy stuff must've really taken its toll on me._ She slipped out of bed, her bare feet landing softly on the cool metallic ground, and went to her bathroom to relieve herself and clean up. Her clothes were filthy (no surprise there—she'd have to wash them again) and her hair was a disaster. She combed it out the best she could and tied it into a low ponytail at the base of her neck. Deciding that she'd deal with bathing and the rest of that sort of thing later, she left the bathroom and exited her quarters to go find Natsu, not even bothering to put her shoes back on.

That task, however, was far more difficult than she'd anticipated. He wasn't in engineering or working maintenance anywhere on the ship, and the bridge was empty with the ship on autopilot. Shrugging to herself, Lucy guessed that he was probably asleep. Absurdly powerful Etherious or not, he probably needed sleep just as much as she did. To be sure, however, she decided to go by his room and check on him.

Sure enough, she was right. As she approached his room, she heard both his and Happy's voices through the door. She turned to leave but stopped when she heard them speak.

"…don't get why you teamed up with her, Natsu."

An unpleasant swooping feeling coursed through Lucy's stomach, and she felt panicked and sick. They weren't talking about her, were they? She listened harder.

"I toldja Happy, I accidentally kidnapped her. It was the only choice we had."

"You could've just dumped her somewhere. You've been to a couple starbases, right? She didn't need to stick around."

"Yeah, but…" Silence. Then: "I promised her I'd get her home. It's my fault she's in this mess, so it's my duty to get her out of it."

"So you like her, then?"

She could almost hear Natsu grin. "You bet I do! She's pretty weird, but also kind of badass. And reaaally smart."

"And not really that nice."

"Huh? Why do you say that?"

"All I've seen her do so far is yell a lot and kick you when she's angry. And what she did to your hair was pretty funny, but it was also kind of mean too. I mean, you were really upset by them but she didn't let you take them out."

"Happy…"

"I dunno, maybe I need to be around her more, but from what I've seen, she's not that nice of a person."

She couldn't breathe as she waited for Natsu's response. Finally, she heard him say softly, "Lucy's really smart and brave. She's got a good head on her shoulders and I think a good heart as well. But she also grew up rich and went to a fancy academy and all that stuff, so it made a difference. So, this is just how she is."

Lucy slid down the wall to the floor silently, feeling like she was going to vomit at any moment. Was that really how she came off? Happy had known her for barely a day, and apparently the only impression she'd given him was that she was a cruel, short-tempered woman who cared little for others. But that wasn't her. It _wasn't._

But now that she thought back on the past couple days, maybe it was. She'd tried to be nicer to Natsu after their ordeals back on the _Dragon_ and when he'd given her his bed out of the sheer kindness of his heart, but clearly those efforts had failed miserably.

And in regards to Happy…reflecting on the matter, she saw that she had _really_ been mean to him. She'd yelled and insulted him when she first met him and hadn't improved her attitude much at all after getting back on the ship. Hell, even her _thoughts_ about him the day before had been nasty.

Blinking rapidly, she realized to her horror that she had acted exactly like her relatives back home. And that thought scared her most of all.

Because if there was anyone in the universe that she did not want to emulate, it was them.

Lucy grit her teeth and stood. Marching back down the hall to her room, she took off her clothes, put them in the wash, climbed into the shower, and made a promise to herself.

 _I will be kinder,_ she vowed. _I will be kinder and wiser and less hot-headed and I won't yell as much, even if they do something incredibly stupid. I will change and be more like Mother and_ not _Father. Never him._

 _You'll see, Natsu, Happy. I'll be better for both of you._

So when she walked out of her room for the second time that day, freshly washed with clean clothes and a new attitude, she felt a little better.

This time when she went to the bridge, both Natsu and Happy were there.

"Hello," she greeted them with a smile.

"Heya," Natsu said cheerfully. "Didja sleep well?"

"Fantastically," she sighed. "I was really shocked when I saw I'd passed out for fourteen hours. Did you sleep?"

"Yeah, but not nearly as much as you. I can only do ten at most without waking up all jittery."

She turned to Happy. "What about you, Happy?"

The Exceed's eyes widened slightly in surprise at the question, but he replied evenly, "I slept like a log. Those stupid guards back on the Federation ship didn't let us sleep, kept poking us and throwing stuff at us instead."

"I'm sorry to hear that," she told him and, ignoring his suspicious look, faced Natsu again. "So what's next on our agenda?"

"Wellll…" his fingers drummed the surface of the console. "We really need to fix the shields."

"Eh?" Happy said. "What's wrong with 'em?" Natsu grinned.

"When we were fighting this ship on our old one, Lucy managed to get a hit in and damage the ship's shields," he recounted. "Which was great and all when this was the enemy ship, but now that it's ours we kinda need it operable again, y'know?"

Lucy blushed. "Whoops. I forgot about that."

"Oooh." Happy nodded in understanding. "I see. Do you want me to take care of it?"

"Yeah, sure," Natsu said. "You're better at that stuff than I am anyway. And after we finish with that I think we should head to the Zoltan homeworlds. They're pretty far away from the Federation but they're on friendly terms, so they should have a starbase there."

"That sounds great," Lucy said.

"Aye, sir!" Happy agreed. "I'm gonna go work on those shields now. But can you turn off the engines so I don't get fried down there? Just leave auxiliary power with life support on and we should be fine." Natsu nodded followed his friend's instructions. Waving with a paw, Happy left the room.

Lucy shot to her feet. "I'm going to go help him out," she told Natsu. He shrugged and nodded.

"Go ahead." He went back to fiddling with the console.

She headed out of the bridge and found Happy in the engineering section. The Exceed had gone around behind the warp core and opened up a section full of incredibly complex wiring. Lucy moved to stand behind him. The only indication that he was aware of her presence was the twitch of his ears in her direction when she stepped onto the platform.

"You can fix the shields from over here?" she asked, surprised. "I thought the damage was at the hull."

"The way most ships, Engi included, are designed so that the primary system functions are located within the base of the ship," Happy explained. "When the debris from your Flak crashed into the _Torus's_ shields it consumed too much energy for the ship to properly maintain the shields anymore and they cut out. Fortunately the ship compensates for those kind of shorts and has a reboot program installed within the main schematics that I can access from here. In reality, all the Flak really did was make the shields short-circuit and knock a couple dents in the hull that don't really matter."

Lucy found herself deflating as she listened. "And I thought I was some big shot for taking out those shields," she mumbled. "So much for that."

"It still required precision," he commented. "Flaks are super difficult to aim."

"So I've been told."

Happy leaned forward so that his tiny body was almost halfway inside the section of paneling. "So why'd you come here?" he asked. "I don't need any help, if that's what you were wondering. This isn't really that hard of a job."

"I knew that. I just wanted to come and apologize."

"Eh?" Happy pulled his head back out to stare at her. "What for?"

"For my behavior towards you," she said. "See, I really think we got off on the wrong foot. I wasn't particularly nice to you and I wanted to try and fix that."

He gazed at her shrewdly. "Did you overhear our conversation?"

"What conversation?" Admitting to eavesdropping would not help her case.

"Never mind." He went back to rebooting the shield systems. "At least you realized that something was wrong—a lot of people would just keep going on without ever noticing a thing or even if they did, they'd just ignore it." A wire sparked and he jerked his paw back with a sharp hiss. "Yowch. Well, I'm all for starting over. I hate not getting along with people."

"That's, um, good," she said nervously. "Then let's try again, shall we?" She squatted low next to him. "Hi there. My name's Lucy Heartfillia, and I'm working with Natsu. He's told me a lot about you, and it's nice to meet you."

The Exceed finished what he was doing with a pleased purr-like noise and closed the panel. Turning to face Lucy, he stuck out his paw at her and said, "Hi Lucy! I'm Happy, Natsu's best friend. I hope that we can be friends too."

Lucy smiled and shook his paw gravely. "So do I." Nodding towards the shield station, she asked, "Did you finish with that?"

Happy nodded. "Yup! Shields are up and running. Engines are gonna be kinda slow for a while 'til they properly wake up, but the warp core's fine and we've got minimum impulse power so we can still move around."

"Good to know." Lucy stood and stretched. She was extremely glad at how well her talk with Happy had gone; it hadn't even been particularly long. As long as she didn't do something stupid, they should be fine. "Shall we head back to the bridge?"

"Aye sir!" said Happy, and together they went back to Natsu.

Upon re-entering the bridge, the pink-haired pilot looked up in surprise and gave a whistle of amazement.

"You guys finished _fast,_ " he said. "I'm guessing there weren't too many problems?"

"Nah, there were hardly any," Happy said. "It just needed a couple touch-ups and a power boost. It didn't even need to be rebooted, which is why it went so quickly."

"Huh. I guess our luck isn't that bad after all." Something at the helm caught his attention, and he turned back to it.

"But we still needed to turn the engines off, right?" Lucy said.

Happy nodded passionately. "Definitely. Normally the power from the engines would be coursing through those wirings would be enough to roast me from the inside out. This ship doesn't have any protection gear to fit someone my size so unless you guys wanted to eat me, they had to go off."

"I wonder what that'd taste like," she mused. "Barbecued Exceed."

"Ugh, don't you start," the cat moaned. "Natsu used to crack jokes like that every other day when we were first learning how to work a ship. I told him I'd taste terrible, but he would just laugh and yell 'meat is meat!' Isn't that right, Natsu?" He turned to his friend, who was staring at the helm with an ashen expression. "Uh, Natsu? What's up?"

"I take back that comment about our luck," he moaned. "Why? Why me?"

"Huh?"

"How the bloody hell is my luck this bad?" he mumbled to himself, ignoring Happy. "It's like I'm the main character in a fantasy novel or something. Everything happens to me. Everything! Can't I go one warp jump without running into some crazy shit?"

"Are you okay?" Lucy asked uncertainly.

"No. No, I'm not. I really don't want to deal with this right now."

"Deal with what?" Happy looked uneasy.

"You don't wanna know," answered Natsu tightly. He began furiously typing in commands and the ship jerked as it moved in another direction.

"Uh, we kind of do," Lucy argued. "Especially if you're changing course."

"You really, really don't."

"We really, really do!"

"Fine, but don't say I didn't warn ya." He glanced up at them and raked a hand through his hair harshly. "We've got a ship on a direct intercept course for us, and guess what? Of course they're pirates."

"But it's okay, right?" Lucy said anxiously. "We've got a new ship now, we'll be fine. We can just warp away."

He shook his head. "Nope. They've got a subspace war signal jammer and it's screwing with our ship. We can't warp, so I'm trying to get away on max impulse. Problem is, our engine's still on cooldown from fixing the shields, so we can't even achieve that. At this rate they'll be on us in eight minutes, thirty-seven seconds. Oh, and to top it all off? They're not just any pirates-they're slavers!"

The cold prickle of dread that was starting to become all-too-familiar began to creep its way up her throat.

"Okay, you were right," she mumbled. "I really didn't want to know."

"We're not gonna outrun them, are we?" Happy said grimly.

Natsu shook his head again. "Doesn't look like it."

Lucy closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. "So, what do we do then?"

His eyes took on a sinister gleam. "We fight!"

She let her breath out in a slow whoosh. "...of course."

"Uh, didn't you guys say that the only weapons you have are a Leto and an ion beam?" Happy said. He had climbed up to the helm and was scanning the oncoming ship on their long-range sensors. "I don't think that's gonna do much. They've titanium casing on their hull and level 2-A shields. Even if we manage to knock the shields out our crappy missiles aren't going to make much of dent in a hull like that."

"Well we've got that drone control system, right?" Lucy said. "Can't we do anything with that?"

Natsu's face lit up. "Oh right, I forgot about that!" He leaped out of his seat and ran out of the room. A few moments later his voice crackled over the intercom.

"You guys copy?"

"Aye sir!" said Happy.

"Good. Geez, this ship is inconveniently designed," he grumbled. "Engi are weird. Anyway Happy, can you take over the helm for now? Lucy's gonna man the weapons and comms and I'm gonna try and wrestle with these little guys to figure out what makes 'em tick."

The Exceed nodded even though the pilot couldn't see him. "You got it, Natsu."

"They're gaining on us," Lucy warned.

"This is so not gonna go well," Happy fretted.

"Hey, be positive!" Natsu said encouragingly. "We're awesome, remember? All we've gotta do is act like we own the quadrant and we'll be fine."

Lucy snorted. "I'm glad you have such confidence. Crap, they're here!"

"Hail 'em first," Happy advised. "Get in their faces and be real aggressive. A lot of slavers are total weenies in front of someone who looks like they can give 'em a run for their money."

 _I don't think that really describes us, but okay…_ She opened the hailing frequencies.

"Slaver ship," she said sternly. "This is the Engi starship _Torus._ We are fully armed and ready for combat. We suggest that you keep your distance."

"You must have a low opinion of our capabilities if you think that our sensors cannot penetrate your pathetic shields," a harsh voice scoffed. "Your rundown Engi tin-can can do naught against the superiority of our Mantis technology. Now, hand over one of your crew and the rest can go unharmed."

Lucy cut the transmission and glanced at Happy. "So much for intimidating them."

The little cat slumped. "I thought it was a good idea," he said dejectedly.

"Yo Luce, patch me into the comms," Natsu said from the drone control room. "I wanna give these losers their answer."

"Please don't piss them off," she pleaded as she linked him in. There was no reply, but she had a feeling he was grinning. "Hailing frequencies open."

"Have you made your decision?" the slaver rasped.

"Yup," Natsu said. "And we've decided that it's better to lose one guy than all our lives. So you'll be getting our communications officer, but fair warning: she kicks pretty hard."

 _…_ _What?_

"We are glad to hear that you have seen reason," the slaver said smugly. "Prepare for immediate transport. Once she is here we shall be on our way and you live another day." The hail cut out.

A vein throbbed in Lucy's temple. " _What_ did he just say?" she ground out from between clenched teeth.

Happy covered his mouth with his paws. "He did not just do that."

"Oh I think he did," she said frigidly. Her expression was thunderous. "And unless he as some sort of grand master plan, new resolutions be damned I'll shatter every one of his ribs."

"I'm sure he knows what he's doing," Happy said nervously.

"We're about to find out," she announced, and stormed off the bridge. She found him in the transporter room, fiddling with some tools and a small container.

"There you are," he said urgently. "Hurry up, I need to send you over."

"What," she said in a low voice, "do you think you're doing?"

He looked up, confused. "What do you mean?"

She took a deep breath, trying to control herself. One chance. She would give him once chance to explain himself before she planted her boot in his side.

"Why," she said, more calmly this time, "are you trying to pawn me off as a slave?"

He blinked. "So they don't attack us. Duh."

Lucy threw her hands up into the air. "What happened to that gung-ho attitude from before where you were yelling 'let's fight!'?"

"That was before Happy us the tactical analysis. Don't get me wrong, this ship's way better than the last one, but we're still outclassed here."

"So you're going to dump me as a slave to save your own skin. I see."

"Hey, I'm saving your skin too, here!" he protested, wide-eyed. "And it's not like you're going forever—you'll be back in what, an hour?"

She frowned. "Huh?"

Natsu suddenly strode over to her and pulled back her jacket. Lucy jumped back, flustered.

"W-what are you doing?" He was really close, definitely inside her personal bubble. "Um, Natsu? Want to clue me on what's going on?"

He reached into her jacket, unzipped a small pocket in the inside of her jacket that she hadn't noticed was there, and slipped something into it.

"I put two things in there," he told her. "One's a sonic screwdriver that you should be able to reach even if your hands are tied behind your back. It'll disable any kind of shackles aside from rope, but nobody uses that anymore anyways so you should be fine." Lucy was finding it difficult to concentrate on what he was saying, what with him being barely four inches away from her and all. Had he not heard of personal space? "Second thing I gave you was a container full of chronometric particles."

"Chronometric particles!" Lucy gasped. "Where in heaven's name did you get _those?_ "

"Found them on the desk back at the core room at Rura Penthe. No idea what they were doing there, but I sure as hell wasn't leaving 'em so I swiped 'em on our way out."

A light laugh of disbelief escaped her lips. "You're incredible."

"Of course I am," he said smugly, but then grew serious again. "Now listen up. When you escape from wherever they've tied you up, you're gonna need to get to their main engineering and find their warp core."

"How in the stars am I going to do that?"

"You'll figure it out. Cause some chaos or something. Maybe free some of the other slaves on board. And also, I'll hopefully be keeping their attention on me for a bit to give you some leeway."

"I'm flattered by your faith in me."

"You should be. Anyway, once you get to the warp core, look for the chamber where they store their dilithuim crystals, open the container, and toss it in. The particles will drain the crystals and their engines'll be deader than roadkill. That way we can outrun 'em without even trying. Once their engines are down I'll use the ion beam to disable their shields and we'll beam you right outta there."

The blond officer was impressed. "You came up with a plan like that in the five minutes between their offer and me getting down here?"

He scratched the back of his neck. "I had to do something similar like this way back when. It worked then, so it should also work now."

"Alright…" she said uncertainly. Natsu, seemingly sensing her discomfort, took both her hands and held them tightly in his own.

"Lucy," he said, his voice low and soft. "Believe me: if I had it my way I would be doing this myself and you wouldn't be in any danger. But those pigs won't take you seriously because you're a human female, and I'm gonna need to be on the ship to distract 'em so you'll have time to knock out their engines. Happy's a decent enough pilot when it comes to moving in a straight line but he can't navigate a ship in battle, and I can't send him because there's nowhere for him to hide anything on his body. You're the only one who can do this."

She swallowed down a lump in her throat. How could she say no, especially with him giving her such a heartrending look and speaking so earnestly?

"I'm truly glad you believe in me," she said hesitantly, and unlike before, she wasn't being sarcastic. "And thank you for trusting me with this. But…" She swallowed again. "I just wish you would have asked me before make this kind of decision. Don't get me wrong, I would have said yes either way, but the right to have choices and make my own decisions really means a lot to me, and I'd like you to respect that."

He dropped his gaze. "I'm sorry, I—"

"Hey." She squeezed his hands comfortingly. "It's alright. Just remember it for the next time something crazy happens, okay?"

He nodded fervently. "I will."

Happy's voice resounded through the room on the intercom, causing them both to glance up. "Uh, guys? Whatever you're gonna do I'd make it quicksy 'cause the slavers are getting impatient."

Natsu looked back at her. "You'll be alright?"

She smiled at him. "Now it's my turn to tell you not to worry. You've given me my orders; all that's left is to fulfill them." Slipping her hands out of his, she climbed onto the transporter pad.

"Lucy," Natsu said. He gazed at her with such intensity that she half expected her clothes to catch fire and for some reason made her heart speed up. "Don't think for one second that I'll ever leave you there, even if things go seriously wrong. You're my friend, and I'd fight through hell and back to make sure that you're safe."

The lump in her throat was back. "Don't say stuff like that right before you send me, silly," she said. "I don't want to show up in front of those slavers all teary and stuff. Although it might help with my image," she added as an afterthought.

Natsu laughed. "Give 'em hell Luce," he said, and transported her away from her ship and onto the slaver vessel.

She materialized in a room painted in the most horrible shade of orange she'd ever come across, and that included the _Bootlicker._ She barely had time to take in more than that, however, before she was seized by a human male and a large, blue-white creature with folds on the side of his head and overlarge nostrils that she recognized as a Cardassian and cuffed behind her back with computerized shackles.

"They send us a puny human woman?" the Cardassian scoffed. "We should blast them out of the stars for this insult."

"No doubt the captain will do just that anyway," the man remarked. "We're too close to Zoltan territory to let someone escape."

"What?" Lucy exclaimed. "But you said—"

"Did you really think we would do something as foolish as let your ship live?" the Cardassian laughed. "If so, then it is you who are the fools, not us." With a sharp tug they dragged her out of the room and through the ship. It wasn't particularly big, with mostly humans and Cardassians on board. As they dragged her around a corner she caught a glimpse of what she thought was the sign to engineering and made a mental note of it.

The man caught her staring. "Keep your eyes to yourself, bitch," he snarled. Grabbing her hair, he gave it a harsh tug that brought tears to her eyes. She let out a low hiss.

"You don't like pain?" He pulled again. "Well, get used to it. You'll be feeling plenty of that for a while. Maybe if you're good we can have some fun together, just me and you." He leered dreadfully at her with chipped yellow teeth.

"Cut that out," the Cardassian snapped. "The goods are to be kept intact and you know it." They halted in front of a large, thick door that Lucy was pretty sure led to the brig where they kept their slaves. The Cardassian typed in a code and the door slid open. They tossed her in with enough force that she landed on her side and had to struggle to get back up again.

The man touched a panel outside the door. "The prisoner is secured, sir," he said.

"Excellent," the voice she had heard on the _Torus_ replied. "Then we shall commence with the destruction of this pitiful vessel."

"Leave my ship alone!" she yelled at them, but they simply laughed and closed the door behind them. Lucy stood there, just staring at the place where they had stood. She knew that the _Torus_ wasn't equipped to handle a fight with this ship and was extremely worried for her two friends. She also knew that Natsu was the best pilot in the galaxy, but that did little to lessen her fears. And to top it all off, she wasn't sure if she could get a door like that open with just a sonic screwdriver. Sonic screwdrivers were complex tools that gave off sound waves of varying frequencies that would disrupt virtually any object, especially mechanical ones, but she'd never used one on something as large as the door she was staring at.

The situation looked bleak. Still staring at the door, she said the only word that seemed to adequately sum up her emotions at the moment.

"Fuck."

Suddenly a heavily muscled arm wrapped her throat and jerked her back with a strangled yelp.

"Who are you," someone hissed, "and why the hell are you wearing Natsu's jacket?"

* * *

 **Some of you may be saying, "They ran into another ship _again?_ Seriously? This is ridiculous," and I fully agree with you. Part of the point of this story is to act as therapy for me and covey the frustrations of the game that is Faster Than Light. Because you will, without a doubt, run into like five ships in a row per warp jump and half of them will be next to a plasma storm or a solar flare and I'll get invaded and my crew eaten and my ship will implode from within and then I'll die. A lot. So like I said: this story is my therapy for when the game screws me over (which happens way too frequently). And because I'm a sadist, I'm now making poor Lucy and Natsu go through this hell with me. BWAHAHAHAHA**

 ***cough* Anyway, please please puh-leeeeeeease let me know what you all think of the chapter. Reviews=inspiration. As usual, thank you all so much for reading and your support!**


	10. The Serial Stripper

**A/N: *gasps with exhaustion* I did it. I got this done in my month time slot with...*checks clock* ...twenty-seven minutes to spare. Hell yeah.**

 **This chapter was loads of fun to write, so I hope you guys enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it. Also, kudos to alla you guys who guessed who the mystery person was! I mean, I wasn't exactly being subtle, but still. That means you're actually reading this and paying attention. I LOVE YOU ALL.**

* * *

Lucy's fingers desperately scrabbled at the arm with its steel grip around her neck, retching.

"Well?" the person strangling her demanded. "Where did you get it?"

"Can't—breathe—" she managed to choke out.

The man (she was pretty sure it was a male) made a disgusted noise in his throat and released her. Lucy stumbled away from him and leaned against the wall, gasping and massaging her throat. Angrily, she glared at the man who had grabbed her.

He was a tall human-looking man wearing a dark black skin-tight bodysuit of some kind that accentuated his lean muscles with dark gray combat boots and a sleek mechanical belt. He wore a silver cross necklace around his neck that brought out the brighter flecks in his slanted charcoal eyes. The sinewy arms that had so rudely grabbed her were shackled in front of him, and messy black hair fell across a chiseled face that was scowling up a storm directly at her. His expression did not help her current mood.

"Helpful tip," she rasped irately. "If you want someone to tell you something, it helps to ask nicely instead of _putting them in a headlock!_ "

He sneered at her. "I don't care about being nice. I want to know where you got that jacket from!"

"And I don't think I'll be telling you," she retorted. "Not with that attitude, anyway!"

His already slanted eyes narrowed even further. Before she could react he flew at her and pinned her to the wall with his arm, but this time he avoided cutting off her oxygen flow.

"I know the man who owns that jacket," he hissed in a low voice. "I've seen him wear it countless times so I know it well. I also know that he would never let just anyone wear it, and I've never seen you before in all the years I've known him. So _where. Did. You. Get it?_ "

She gave him the filthiest look she could muster. "Bite me."

"You're really pushing my buttons here, lady," he warned. His eyes darted back down to the jacket, and then to her clothes underneath. He stiffened and flicked gaze back to her face to stare at her with eyes smoldering with intense hate.

" _Federation._ " He spit it out like a curse.

Oh no. She did NOT have time to deal with a violent psychopath nursing grudges against the Federation. Working her mouth, she gathered up all the saliva in it and spat the glob directly into the man's eyes. He withdrew with a sharp cry of revulsion, trying to wipe his eyes with his bound hands. Lucy took advantage of his situation to send her boot flying directly into his ribs, just as she would to Natsu. The man doubled over in shock, and she jumped, swinging her leg up into the air in an arc and bringing it down onto his shoulder in one of the neatest wheel kicks she'd ever pulled off. He slammed into the ground with an agonized gasp and tried to climb back to his feet, but Lucy wasted no time in leaping behind him, ramming her knee into his back, and stepping on his arm with her other foot to stop him from moving.

She cleared her throat and leaned towards his left ear, her hair falling down over her shoulder. " _Now_ will you listen to me?"

The man laughed. "Holy shit, you can fight!" he panted. "I don't remember the last time I came across a chick that put me down that fast aside from my family and Mira. I must be getting rusty."

"Or maybe I'm just that good," she remarked dryly, trying not to dwell on the fact that she hadn't taken self-defense in years. "But it's nice to know you have a healthy ego, anyway. Now," she said, pressing her knee into his back more sharply, causing him to hiss in pain. "Let's start from the beginning, shall we? I'm Lucy Heartfillia, and I did not steal this jacket. Who are you, and how do you know Natsu?"

"I'm Gray Fullbuster," he grunted. "I've known Natsu since we were kids."

"Wait, Gray?" she cried, lifting her legs slightly in shock. " _The_ Gray? The ice princess?"

"Oh no," Gray moaned. "What has that flame brain been telling you about me?"

"Oh my God, you're Gray Fullbuster!" Lucy leapt off the prostrate man in horror. "I just wheel kicked one of Natsu's best friends! Aah, I am _so_ sorry!" She tried to help him up off the floor, but she was finding it difficult to do much more than kick him with her hands tied behind her back. Gray waved her off with an arm and climbed stiffly to his feet, wincing as he felt his side and shoulder.

"Aw shit this hurts," he groaned. "And your spit's all gunky in my eyes." He awkwardly tried to wipe his eyes again.

"I am so, so sorry," she said frantically. "If I'd known who you were I never would have—"

"It's nice that you seem to know who I am, but I've got no idea who you are," he interjected harshly. "Last I'd heard Natsu had gotten himself caught by the Federation and next thing I know you're showing up in a Federation uniform wearing the jacket that he never lets go of. Sorry if I'm a little suspicious." He didn't sound sorry at all.

"Wait wait, I can see how this must look," she pleaded, backing up several steps. "But just hear me out, will you? I didn't take this from his cold dead corpse; he gave it to me after he kidnapped me—"

"He _what?_ "

"—and I didn't have anything to wear and couldn't get new clothes and this was the only thing lying around—"

"He kidnapped you NAKED?"

"What? No!"

"That's what it sounds like!"

"No no, it's nothing like—"

"How the hell did he get that pervy in the two months since I've seen him?"

"He's not a perv, he—"

"And why were you naked in the first place? Are you some kind of porn star or something?"

"I WASN'T NAKED!" she bellowed, effectively shocking him into silence. "God, is everyone connected to Natsu this thick-headed? He kidnapped me from my starship while trying to steal from it and I had no choice but to stick around with him. All I had was my Federation uniform which was something we agreed would get us in trouble if we ran into the wrong crowd so he lent me the only other article of clothing that he wasn't wearing, which was this jacket. Capisce?"

A pause. Then: "Yeah, but—"

"No buts. I will be more than happy to give over the full story in all its gory richness when we _aren't_ shackled in the brig of a slaver ship."

He had the decency to look abashed. "Yeah, alright, I guess."

She took a deep, calming breath. "Okay," she said slowly. "Now, if you're really Gray Fullbuster, then this is a stroke of luck I really needed. The pigs that threw me in here didn't bother to search me, so I've got a sonic screwdriver in the pocket of my jacket. Problem is, I've never used it on something as large as these doors. Do you know how to work it?"

He frowned. "Lemme see it."

Lucy awkwardly twisted her bound hands up the inside of the back of her jacked and managed to extract the screwdriver. Turning around, she gingerly tossed it to Gray. In an impressive move for someone with shackled hands he managed to catch it and held it up to the light, examining it.

Lucy sulked. "How come they cuffed you in the front?" she grumbled. "It figures that I get all the horrible luck."

"I backed myself up to the wall so they couldn't," he replied absently. "Escaping is so much easier when your hands are in front of you." He twisted a couple knobs on the screwdriver, adjusting the settings, then deftly flipped it in his hands and disabled his own shackles. They snapped open with a sharp click and fell to the floor.

"That's much better," Gray sighed, rubbing his wrists gratefully. "I was getting real tired of those stupid things."

The blond held out her own hands. "Well?" she asked, twisting her head around to look at him expectantly.

He didn't move. "First tell me where Natsu is."

She felt her eye begin to twitch. "Are you kidding me? Can't this wait until _after_ I'm freed?"

"No." He folded his arms. "Where is Natsu?"

Lucy let out a sigh of frustration. "He's on our ship that's directly in front of this one with Happy. I'd like to add that said ship is about to be targeted by a bunch of slaver scum who don't keep their word and I'd also like to prevent the destruction of again said ship and friends aboard it, so can you _PLEASE UNCUFF ME ALREADY?"_ Her voice rose to an enraged scream at the last part.

His eyebrows disappeared into his hair. "Woah, alright. Geez." He pointed the screwdriver at her shackles, causing them to fall off in the same way his had. Lucy mimicked Gray's actions and rubbed her chaffed wrists.

"Now that we've done that, what next?" Gray asked. "It's not like we've got anywhere to go."

"Actually, we do," Lucy said, and pulled out the container that Natsu had given her for him to see. "We need to get to their engineering section so we can toss this little baby into their dilithium crystal chamber."

He eyed the container in askance. "Why? What's in that?"

"Chronometric particles."

The way his slanted eyes seemed to pop out was comical in a slightly creepy way. "Where the fuck did you get those?"

"Natsu. He stole them."

Gray rubbed his forehead. "Of course he did," he muttered to himself. "And of course he'd come up with something as crazy as this. Chronometric particles, particles of time that run faster than normal time. Toss them into the dilithium chamber and they'll drain the crystals in minutes. No engines, no shields, and we're free to go." He looked up at her. "That's brilliant. I really hate to say it, but it is. Just don't tell him I said that, okay?"

"I'd like to have the opportunity not to," she said wryly. "And first step to doing that is getting out of this brig. I think I know where the engineering section is from here."

"On it." Gray strode forward and gazed at the door appraisingly. He raised the screwdriver, adjusted the settings once more, then pointed at the top of the door. The screwdriver emitted a high-pitched whining noise and the doors rumbled for a moment, then opened smoothly. He held his hand out.

"Ladies first."

"Don't mind if I do," Lucy said, surprised. She cautiously stuck her head around the corner, looking to see if anyone was walking around. Seeing that the coast was clear, she beckoned to Gray with a quick flip of her hand. He followed after her, and after handing her back the screwdriver, they set off together down the hallway.

"Are there any other slaves on board?" she asked as they swiftly made their way towards the sign that Lucy had seen earlier.

"Yeah, they're on a lower deck," he said.

She poked her head around another corner to see that the next hallway was also empty. "How come you were on your own in there then? Did they run out of room or something?"

He snorted. "They wish they were that good at their trade. Nah, I was just stirring up too much trouble so they dumped me in solitary confinement. I guess they were too impatient to get out of here to bring you all the way down to the rest of the cells."

"Lucky for me, then. Oh!" Lucy flung out her arm, stopping Gray from proceeding. "It's down here," she said, referring to the sign that she had seen earlier by a turbolift. Having no opposition, the two escapees slid into the trubolift with relative ease and hit the button for engineering.

"This place has really lousy security," Lucy noted as they descended. "What are we going to do if we run into some of the slavers?"

"Now that I'm unshackled, we should be fine," Gray said, cracking his knuckles.

"He says to the girl who just floored him with two kicks," she commented under her breath.

"Heyyy, that was an exception," he protested. "I mostly fight with my hands to begin with, and I dropped my guard 'cause you're pretty girl."

"Should I be flattered or insulted?"

"Um…"

"Bear in mind that I tend to kick people who insult me."

"Definitely flattered."

She nodded. "I thought so."

The turbolift started to slow down when suddenly the entire ship seemed to jerk to the side, shaking vigorously. Lucy and Gray flew across the lift and slammed into the wall with yelps of pain.

"What the hell?" Gray cried.

The ship heaved again, this time in the opposite direction. "I'll bet it's Natsu," Lucy called over the shaking of the lift. "He said he would give me some kind of distraction; this is probably it."

"This is totally like him," grunted the dark haired man as he braced himself against the wall. "Make up a plan to save someone that involves recklessly endangering the person he's trying to save. Can't he have a normal plan for once?"

She laughed. "If he ever does, I'll eat his jacket."

"And I'll join you with a side dish of my boots."

The doors to the lift swished open and they both stumbled out, trying to regain their balance on the still quaking ship. They looked up to see a shocked Cardassian staring at them. It reached for the phaser strapped to its side but Gray darted forward faster than Lucy could keep track of and slammed the heel of his palm into its jaw. It staggered backwards, stunned, and Gray cracked his elbow into its chest. The Cardassian hunched over and Gray grabbed its head and smashed it straight into his knee with a sickening crack. The Cardassian slumped over onto the floor, out cold, and Gray turned to look at Lucy with a raised eyebrow.

"Good enough for you?"

She blinked rapidly. "Uh. Yeah, yeah, I think so."

They took in the engineering room. It was a large, circular room painted the same horrid shade of orange the transporter room had been with the glowing warp core located directly in the center, extending from the floor to the ceiling with control stations situated all around it. Lucy tentatively went further in, looking for more crewmembers that would raise the alarm. To her unease, she found none.

"Where is everyone?" she wondered aloud. "Shouldn't there be a whole bunch of people in their main engineering room? At least more than one guy, anyway."

Gray went over to look at a console with the ship's layout on it. "It looks like they've got a huge hull breach in their weapons hangar," he reported. "This ship probably didn't have many people on board to begin with, and I'd say that the rest of 'em went to go help with the breach. Whatever the hell Natsu did, it was definitely effective."

Alarmed, Lucy turned to look at him. "A hull breach?" she said. "How bad is—where did your shirt go?"

He glanced down at his bare chest. "Huh? When did that happen?"

Her eyebrows shot up. "Are you telling me you don't know when you took your own shirt off?"

If his nonplussed look was anything to go by, he didn't.

"I dunno, it kinda just happens," he said with a shrug. "Anyway, the ship's containment field in that section is going to fail in around six minutes."

"That doesn't give us a lot of time. We need to fine the dilithium chamber now."

He looked up from the console. "I can probably find it faster than you."

She tilted her head. "Why's that?"

"'Cause I'm an engineer, that's why. Probably the best one you'll find around these parts." Noticing her surprised expression, he frowned. "Why's that so weird?"

"I always imagined you to be a pilot like Natsu," she said with a light chuckle. "Guess that was kind of silly of me."

Gray strode about the room, examining each aspect of its design thoroughly. "Hell no, not me," he said with a light shudder. "I hate piloting. It makes me so freaking nervous. Like, what if I don't notice something in front of me and ram into an asteroid or something? Or another ship? Nah, I leave that kind of stuff to the pyro. I'm much more at home in a warp core field or fixing a circuit board. And speaking of me being a damn good engineer, I found our chamber." He began to pry loose a slightly discolored panel in the wall with a completely undecipherable sign in an unknown language over it. Lucy hurried over to him and pulled out the container of particles.

"We just toss it in, right?"

"Well yeah, once you tell me how to open it."

"Open it?"

"It's got a hermetic seal on it so the particles don't escape; I've gotta undo it before I chuck 'em in."

Lucy bit her upper lip. "Um…"

He narrowed his eyes at her. "Natsu _did_ tell you how to open it, right?"

Mutely, she shook her head. Gray facepalmed and hissed to himself, "Flame-brained _moron,_ how do you forget something like that?"

"What do we do?" she asked anxiously.

He closed his eyes, thinking, then held out his hand. "Gimme the sonic screwdriver," he ordered. "I'm gonna work on this seal for now. The rest of the crew's gonna be back here any minute so while I'm trying to figure this out you need to go down to the third deck and free the rest of the slaves."

Her brow furrowed. "How am I going to do that if you've got the screwdriver?"

He pointed to a small dark square device lying on a nearby console. "See that? That's an electroflux modulator. It's meant for helping to repair burnt out conduits, but if you stick that on one of the panels that opens their doors it'll fry the whole system and you should be able to pry the door open without much of a problem. They're not hard to work; just point and press. Better hurry though—we don't have much time left."

Lucy nodded, snatched the modulator, and ran out of the room. Back into the turbolift she ran, slamming the down button with unnecessary force. When she finally got down, she started to proceed further down the hall only to freeze upon hearing multiple voices shouting harshly about plugging a breach.

 _Natsu may not be the best when it comes to sharing information,_ she screamed internally, _but you, Sir Gray Fullbuster, are no better!_ For the self-proclaimed "damn good engineer" had neglected to mention that the hull breach that the slaver crew had gone to repair was on the same deck as the slaves she was trying to free.

From the sounds of the shouting, it seemed that the breach was almost contained. Which meant…Lucy glanced back at the turbolift she'd just come down from. That was how they'd be getting back up to engineering. If she wanted to give Gray more time, she'd have to make some sacrifices.

Heart in throat, the blond made her way back to the turbolift and looked around. Locating the control panel inside it, she aimed the electric-whatever-Gray-had-called-it at it and pressed the main button. With a satisfying zapping noise a crackle of blue light jumped from the device to the panel, lighting it up. The whole panel flared for a moment, then with several panicked beeps went dark. There. Now even if there were other ways to access the other decks, at least this would buy Gray some more time. Pleased with her work, Lucy ran out of the now useless turbolift and down the hall.

Several feet down it branched into two paths; Lucy took the one where she didn't hear the voices coming from. Unfortunately for her, she had no idea if this was the right one. What if the weapons hangar was right next to the brig where the prisoners were and they'd all died from oxygen deprivation? Was she even going anywhere productive?

A large, hideous orange door rushed by her head as she ran, and she skidded to halt, backtracking slightly. The door looked an awful lot like the one she'd been thrown through, even if the color was different. Curiously she tried to open the door, but the keypad responded with an angry beep and demanded a password.

"Bingo," she whispered. "Just please let it be prisoners and not their alcohol." She aimed the device in her hand at the keypad and zapped it just like she had the turbolift. The doors opened with a faint hiss to reveal about a dozen figures of various forms shackled to separate stations within a very large room. They all looked up upon hearing the door open.

Lucy opened her mouth to greet them but gagged on her words. An utterly foul stench was wafting towards her, making her eyes water and throat burn. Whatever those slavers did to their slaves, she had a feeling it was not hygienic. Coughing slightly, she tried again.

"Is this all the slaves?" she wheezed.

One filthy human-looking male in a corner glared at her. "Who are you?" he demanded. "Another bastard to try and buy us off?"

"What? No, no," she said, shaking her head. "My name's Lucy. I was taken prisoner a few minutes ago but I escaped. I'm here to free you all."

"Are you kidding me?" another prisoner scoffed. This one had far too many limbs to be from this side of the galaxy—it must have been far away from home. "You think we're just gonna pick up and waltz outta here with some random human female?"

"You will after I unshackle you all," Lucy declared. She stepped into the room and examined the shackles on the nearest prisoner, praying that they were computerized like the ones she and Gray had worn. To her immense relief, they were. Flipping the electro-device in her hands, she began to free the prisoners one by one.

"What should we do?" asked the first prisoner she released. "So what if you've freed us—we have nowhere to go."

Lucy kept unshackling the slaves. "Yes you do. My ship is currently engaged in battle with this one and I know for a fact that some of this crew is already down. If you work together you can easily take over the rest of this ship." She reached the final prisoner just as the ship gave another tremendous lurch to the side, knocking everyone over. "And that's my cue to leave," she said as the final shackles fell to the floor. "Good luck everyone!" she called, and rushed out the door."

"Wait lady, you can't just leave us—" the liberated slave's voice faded out of earshot as she ran back down the corridor to the disabled turbolift. Luckily for her, she saw that the slavers had already attempted to use the lift but had been met with little success, so they'd run around to find some other way. Lucy smirked to herself and aimed the electro-device at the control panel again, expecting it to simply zap back into operation.

It didn't.

The smile slid from her face like water over glass. Why wasn't it working? She pressed the button again. Still nothing? Why? Wasn't this stuff supposed to work like integers? Two negatives made a positive? One zap disabled the lift, another restarted it?

Apparently not.

She really needed to retake basic engineering.

Chewing her lip, she reconsidered her plan. She had to get back to the deck above somehow, but how? Her gaze flicked upwards to the ventilation shaft at the top of the turbolift. The large and awkward Cardassians may not have been able to fit into it, but she might.

Jamming the device into a pocket of her jacket, she stood atop the railing of the lift, pressed the button to open the hatch for the shaft, and heaved herself into it. It was dark, narrow, and cramped inside, but she was able to locate the ladder and start climbing. The ascent seemed to take forever, but she finally reached the door that opened into the next deck.

Breathing heavily from her exertions, Lucy stumbled into the engineering room. A brief glance about the room told her that no crewmembers had come back. With a sigh of relief she made her way over to where Gray was working on the seal for the container.

"Gray, I'm back," she said wearily. "I freed the slaves, they should—WHERE ARE YOUR _CLOTHES,_ GRAY FULLBUSTER?!"

Lucy clapped her hands over eyes as quickly as she could and turned away, for sitting cross-legged on the floor, fiddling with the seal with a look of intense concentration on his face, was Gray Fullbuster sans a single stitch of clothing on him.

The dark haired engineer looked up innocently. "What?"

"Pants," she moaned weakly. "Underwear. Something? Anything? Why on earth are you naked?"

"Huh?" He looked around distractedly. "I guess I took 'em off at some point. Sorry, I tend to take my clothes off when I'm concentrating. They're so stuffy."

"My God," she said faintly. "Natsu was right. You really do strip, and it's just as bad as he said it was. I thought he was joking!"

"Nope," Gray said. "Done this since I was a kid. Something I grew up with. It was how I was taught to work."

"I'm…I'm going to go look for your clothes while you finish with that," she mumbled. "Just keep working."

He made a face. "Sure thing."

Desperately trying to banish the image of a naked Gray from her mind, she walked around the engineering room in a light daze, trying to locate his clothing. She might have to pour some bleach over her eyes later.

There was a slight click and Gray made a pleased sound. "Got it!" he crowed triumphantly. "That was one hell of a weird seal, but I got it in the end. Told you I would!"

"That's nice," Lucy said as she approached him with several pieces of his clothes draped in her arms. She determinedly kept her gaze fixed on the floor and shoved his underpants, pants, and belt into his arms. "I don't want to know how your pants got on the other side of the room when you haven't budged an inch since I left."

"Thanks," he said. "Can you dump the particles in the chamber while I put these back on?"

"Gladly," she muttered. Lightly flipping open the panel, she nestled the container in between several crystals and unscrewed the cap. The instant she did so a hot pain lanced through her fingers and she withdrew her hand sharply, slamming the panel closed.

Wincing, she examined her fingers. The nails on the hand she'd had in the chamber where much longer than those on her other hand and her skin felt dryer as well. She suspected that her brief exposure to the particles had aged her right hand by several weeks. Lucy giggled slightly. It felt odd to think that one part of her body was older than the rest of her. She flexed her hand to make sure that everything was still in working order and, finding that it was, lowered her hand and turned back to Gray.

"How's this?" he asked. The serial stripper had fortunately put his underwear and pants back on, but he was still missing his shoes and shirt.

"Better, but you're not going to be admitted to any restaurants any time soon," she deadpanned.

"Restaurants are overrated," he said. The ship shook violently again, and voices suddenly began echoing down the hall, causing him to brow furrowed. "We need to find somewhere to hide until the particles drain the crystals. Do you have some way to contact Natsu?"

"Um…"

A sigh. "Of course you don't."

"Hey, we were pressed for time," she said defensively. "It's not like we had an hour to run it through a tactical simulation."

He raked a hand through his hair. "Yeah, whatever. We need to get outta here!" He grabbed her hand and the two of them raced out of the room back to the turbolift. Lucy explained to Gray what she'd done to the lift to try and deter their pursuers and after enduring Gray's mini-rant on her idiocy ("That's like throwing a cooked French Fry back into the frying pan and expecting it to magically turn back into a potato!") they both climbed through the ventilation shaft to the deck above them. Unfortunately, all that was on the deck was the room they were held prisoner in and a section filled with slavers, so they headed back to the shaft. By a stroke of luck they stumbled upon Gray's discarded shirt (literally—Lucy nearly careened headfirst into the wall) and after he hastily stuffed in on, they climbed to the next deck.

They emerged into a hallway that only led in one direction. With no choice but to follow it, they cautiously headed down the passage, pausing every few steps as the ship shook. As they proceeded further down, they began to hear the sounds of raised voices, weapons, and fighting. Gray exchanged looks with Lucy.

"Sounds like those slaved you freed are doing their job," he remarked casually.

"It's about time something went right today!" she replied emphatically.

A curve in the hallway came up before them. They slowly stuck their heads around the corner to see a massive brawls going down before them. Indeed, all of the prisoners Lucy had released had converged on what appeared to be the bridge of the ship and were currently engaged in battle with the slavers. Amidst the chaos of flying limbs, phaster blasts, and hurtling sharp objects, Lucy and Gray could make out on the main viewer screen the image of several small objects darting quickly about the ship, firing small bursts at the ship every few seconds. The slaver ship was trying to fire back at the small image of the _Torus_ in the background, but the smaller ship moved far too agilely to actually get hit. Every now and then a large blast of crackling blue light would be shot from the _Torus_ and hit the slaver ship with a massive slam and the ship would shake aggressively.

"So that's what he's been doing," Lucy called to Gray over the noise. "Natsu's been firing bursts of ion blasts at the ship to short out their shields, then sending over drones to do damage while the shields were out!"

"And at the same time, he's dodging all of their counterattacks flawlessly." Gray shook his head. "And that is why _he's_ the pilot, and no one else."

"Tell me about it." Something large and white flew over their heads, causing them to duck reflexively. She glanced at Gray and did a double-take. "Gray, why are you taking off your pants again?!"

He glanced down. Sure enough, he had unbuttoned his pants and was slowly sliding them off. His eyes widened and he yanked them back up. "Crap! Sorry, I didn't mean—"

"We need to get over to the communications to contact Natsu," she yelled, cutting him off.

"I'll make a path," Gray said. "You get over there!"

Together the two of them began to hack their way through the melee of frantic slavers and murderous slaves. Gray went in front of Lucy, knocking people out of their way left and right with his bare fists and feet. He did a remarkable job of clearing the way; Lucy barely had to kick anyone. Finally, they made it to the communications console. Lucy opened the hailing frequencies to the _Torus_ while Gray fended various attackers off.

"About time!" Natsu's voice roared. "Have you recognized the superiority of my absolutely awesome drones and piloting skills?"

"Yeah, I think we got the point, Natsu!" she shouted, trying to be heard over the din.

"Lucy?"

"In the flesh." An arm flew by her head so closely that the breeze from the swing ruffled her hair. "Look, things are really crazy over here, but I got the particles in the dilithuim chamber. The engines and shields should go out any minute now."

"I can't really hear you that well, but that sounds great," Natsu said. "Where are you right now?"

"I'm on the main bridge." Gray tackled a huge Cardassian and threw it into another three attackers' paths.

"There are too many lifesigns there—I can't tell which one is yours!"

"I'll tell you what: I'm going to go out into the immediate hallway from here. There'll be me and one other person standing right next to each other. When the shields drop for good, beam us out."

"Another person? Who—"

"Trust me, Natsu!" Her voice was beginning to grow hoarse from all the yelling. "Just get us out of here. And don't fire on the ship anymore! I don't want to get blown to smithereens."

"Gotcha," he said.

"Thanks. I'm out." She cut off the channel and motioned to Gray. He caught her eye and nodded, and the two of them began to fight their way out once more.

Once they made it out of the bridge, they collapsed against the wall near the turbolift, convinced it was far enough from the chaos to relax a little. Lucy looked Gray over to make sure that he was alright. Aside from a few nasty bruises on his face and arms, he seemed to be alright. There was, however, a rather nasty cut across his chest that she wanted to take a look at later to make sure that there wasn't anything malicious in it. Some creatures came naturally equipped with poison, after all. And if it came from one of the slaves, she knew that judging from the cleanliness of the main holding cell she didn't want _anything_ they'd touched to be in her bloodstream.

"So you talked to him, right?" Gray asked, chest heaving.

She nodded. "Yeah. We should be out of here any minute now." Sure enough, even as she spoke the ship went dark as the main engines died. Seconds later, the world shimmered before them and they materialized in the transporter room of the _Torus._

"Oh thank God." Lucy breathed a sigh of relief. "I was beginning to think we'd never get out of there." She ran over to the panel by the door and contacted the bridge. "Natsu, we're here, you've got us."

"About time!" the thief cheered. "Annnnnd we are OUTTA here!" The ship vibrated beneath them as they shot into a warp jump.

Gray let out a nervous laugh. "Holy shit, we're really out," he said, raking his fingers through his hair again. Lucy noticed that both he and Natsu seemed to share that particular habit.

"Welcome to the _Torus,_ " she said to him. "Now come with me to the medbay, I want to make sure that you're okay."

"Isn't this an Engi ship?" he asked as he followed her down the halls, gazing at the green paneling lining the walls.

"Yeah, we had to steal this one," she said. "It's a long story."

He chuckled. "I'll bet."

Upon reaching the medbay she sat him down on the examining table and began to prepare some disinfectants and bandages while he took his shirt off. She was about to start cleaning it when the door swished open and Natsu charged in with Happy right behind him.

"Luce, are you okay? I'm so sorry about all of this, and who's the—" He skidded to a halt and stared at the man on the table in open disbelief.

" _Gray?_ "

He raised a hand in greeting. "Yo."

Happy squealed happily. "Gray!"

"Wha—what the—how—what are you doing here?" Natsu spluttered.

"Nice to see you too, flame brain," grumbled Gray.

"Don't get smart with me, droopy eyes! How the hell did you get here?"

"The magical fairies sparkled me here," he said sarcastically.

Natsu blinked. "Wait, _you_ were the second person on the slave ship?"

Gray looked up at the heavens. "It finally clicks!"

"Gray!" Natsu's eyes were wide and horrified. "How could you take up slaving?"

"I wasn't the slaver you idiot, I was the slave! The SLAVE, dammit!"

The rosy-haired thief laughed. "How the hell did you end up as a slave? That is so lame, man."

"No better than you, lava spit! You went and got your ass caught by the Federation!"

"I," stated Natsu matter-of-factly, "was _almost_ captured by a full fleet regiment at an admirals' convention but escaped in the end. You, on the other hand, were bagged by a bunch of third-rate slaver scum that couldn't even control their own prisoners. How exactly am I not better than you?"

"I wasn't caught by them at first! I was trying to take a Federation ship, just like we bet!"

"That didn't look too much like a Federation ship."

"That wasn't the ship I was trying to steal; the first ship was a full-blown A-class Federation cruiser that was docked for repairs. It's just, well…" he let out a harsh sigh of frustration. "How was I supposed to know that the ship was in the middle of being stolen by someone else?"

Natsu doubled over with laughter. "Are you kidding me?" he said in between chortles. "You tried to steal a ship that was already being stolen?"

"There was literally no freaking way for me to know that the Raven Tail pirates were going to be taking that ship at the same time I was."

"So what, you got caught by them and then sold?"

"…yeah."

More laughter. "That is so freaking lame!"

"Oh yeah? If I'm so lame, then how did you end up in some Engi scrap heap?"

"In a much cooler way than you, I'll say that much."

"Shut up, you flaming bucket of lighter fluid!"

"You wanna go, popsicle pants?" The two of them glared daggers at each other and seemed fully prepared to start swinging punches.

Lucy, who had been following this exchange with a feeling of increasing confusion and concern, decided that she'd had enough, and slammed the medical bag in her hands down onto the table with as much force as she could muster. Both men jumped in surprise, seemingly having forgotten she was there.

"That is enough, both of you," she said sternly. "I don't care how weird your bromance is, it's going to have to wait to blossom until after I've patched Gray up so that he doesn't die of an infection."

"I can take care of him way before that if you want," Natsu said with a menacing glare in his rival's direction.

"Like you ever could," Gray sneered back.

"I'll show you!" Natsu started to wind up his arm but froze as Lucy calmly walked up to him, grabbed him by the scarf, and promptly flung him outside the medbay, locking the door behind him.

"You can come back in when you can behave like an adult," she told him through the door, and turned back to her patient who was staring at her with a slightly awed expression.

"Now," she said crisply. "Hold still while I clean this cut of yours."

"Yes ma'am."

He was quiet for a few moments while she cleaned the wound, but then asked, "So, uh, how _did_ you guys end up on this ship? And meet, for that matter?"

And so Lucy started to tell Gray the story of how she and Natsu had met, Happy taking over for the second half of the story when Lucy's voice began to give out. When they finished, Gray looked mildly impressed.

"Y'know, don't tell him this, but I think he's right," he said. "His story is better than mine. Although," he added," I'm still trying to figure out how you can accidentally kidnap someone."

"Aren't we all," muttered Lucy. She seemed to be doing a lot of muttering of late.

"Can I come back in now?" Natsu yelled from outside the room.

"Only if you promise to _behave,_ " she called back warningly. There was a grudging reply in the positive, so she nodded to Happy to let him back in as she began to bandage the cut.

The door swished open and Natsu walked back in, eyeing Lucy warily. Then he looked at Gray. "Your paper cut all taken care of, ice princess?"

"This?" the dark haired man gestured at his chest dismissively. "This isn't even gonna be here tomorrow."

"The testosterone levels in this room are revolting," Lucy said disgustedly. She looked at Happy. "Are they always like this?"

"Always," the little cat replied gravely.

"Lovely."

Natsu raised an eyebrow at Gary suspiciously. "So what are you gonna do now, stripper? You want us to dump you at the nearest station or something?"

"Anything would be better than staying on the same ship as you," Gray scoffed, but there was something off about it, as if he were only saying those words out of some twisted macho-fueled obligation. Lucy was no mind-reader, but she had a feeling she knew what he really wanted. Of course, he would never actually admit to it, so she decided to help him out.

"He's not going anywhere," she declared, tying the bandage with a flourish. "He's useful and cute, and we're going to keep him."

Natsu gaped. "Useful?"

"Cute?" Happy echoed.

"Keep him?" Gray repeated, frowning.

"Well of course," Lucy said with a _this-should-be-obvious_ air. "We need a proper engineer in case things go wrong, as none of us have the proper qualifications. He's nice and I like him, and I doubt we'll find anyone better anytime soon. Also, he has nowhere else to go, so he's going to pay us back for saving his butt by traveling with us and ensuring that we don't die. Sound good?"

Both Gray and Natsu spoke at the same time. "No."

She nodded with satisfaction. "Excellent. Glad we could work this out so seamlessly." She put the medical bag away and headed out of the medbay. "Oh and Gray, the main engineering section is this way." She jerked her thumb to the left. "Be sure to check it out. You can take one of the empty rooms to sleep in once you're done." The sound of their indignant splutters followed her down the corridor.

She stopped by their maintenance room to put back the sonic screwdriver. Down the hall, she could hear Gray yell, "Dude, your engine SUCKS! How the hell are you moving at all?" and Natsu boast back, "Think that's bad? Ya should've seen the last one!" Smiling to herself, she went to go freshen up in her quarters. Things were going to be very interesting from here on out.

She couldn't wait.

* * *

 **Annoying author here to pester you lovely readers for reviews. Please, I really wanna know what you all think! I love hearing from you guys almost as much as I love chocolate.**

 **And hey, even if you don't normally review, wanna do it just this once? As a birthday present? It's tomorrow. Or, well, today, depending on when y'all see this. I dunno-it's the 16th. Anyway, that'd be just about the best b-day present I'm gonna get this year :)**

 **As usual, thanks so much for reading!**


	11. The Ties that Bind Us

**A/N: Holy cow this story passed 100 reviews and followers! AAAAAAA**

 **I never thought something of mine would ever reach half of that kind of response. This means that over 100 people are actually interested in reading my crazy ramblings. I cannot thank you all enough! The least I can do for you all is give you another chapter; I just hope it lives up to your expectations. Also, please remember that this is unbeta'd so kindly forgive me for any mistakes.**

 **And one last thing: Thank you so much for all the birthday wishes! They made me feel all gooey inside xD**

* * *

Three weeks later, Lucy privately admitted that she could have waited. She'd been right about things being interesting—she just hadn't realized how much that interestingness was going to involve _her._

It was a virtual impossibility for the two men to be in the same room with each other for more than ten minutes without starting up with each other, more often than not resulting in physical brawls that Lucy would have to break up with several well-aimed kicks. They constantly bickered with each other, finding flaws in every nuance of the other's work, and when there were no flaws to find they created imaginary ones. Competition was what seemed to drive them—in nearly every aspect of their day-to-day lives they tried to outdo the other, even going as far as to try and see who could make a perfect triangle in their sandwiches.

However, all this rivalry vanished in an instant when they encountered a dangerous situation. They immediately ran to their stations and worked together in a seamless team that operated so smoothly that it sometimes left Lucy baffled and even a little jealous. Happy knew how to skillfully navigate their relationship as well, egging them on in playful quarrels and providing just the right amount of help when the situation called for it. Together it all came together in an odd sort of little family, and as a result Lucy felt a little lost.

Not that they didn't try to include her—far from it. From the get-go, Natsu and Gray called Lucy in to judge their matches and declare the victors in their various scuffles. Sometimes they'd even fight over her, roaring about how they wanted to show her what a _real_ space thief looked like. But no matter what, they always remained steadfast friends, however much they tried to deny it. Happy said their "old-married-couple-bickering" was just how they showed how much they loved each other (he was promptly flung into the ship's tiny brig by the two disgusted men) and watching them, Lucy had to agree.

The true depth of their friendship, however, came to light at the end of the third week after Gray joined them. The four of them were lounging about in the "dining room" (previously one of the spare rooms with a really good food replicator that they'd cleared out and stuck a table and some chairs in), munching on their various snacks. Happy was sitting on the table plowing his way through a bag of _MewMew's Kitty-Cat Treats_ while Natsu inhaled half a dozen plates of Ultra-Spicy Nachos drenched in _Dr. Doom's Death Sauce_ (which was, according to Natsu, fifty times hotter than the Carolina Reapers grown on Magnolia) _._ Every few bites he would turn his head and cough out a small fireball, to which Gray would respond by tossing a frozen grape at him. Natsu, being Natsu, replied in kind by growling and flicking a chip right back at him. Happy, not wanting to miss out on the fun, began to add to the mini-food war by tossing his cat treats into the mix. At first Lucy was content to ignore them, but after there were two saucy Nachos, a frozen grape, and three cat treats glaring up at her from her bowl of chocolate pudding, she put her foot down.

"If you three don't cut this out right now," said Lucy, glowering. "I will have each of you consume an equal portion of what USED to be my pudding." She held up the bowl to give them a clear view of the abomination inside it.

The three of them peered into the bowl and recoiled sharply.

"No thanks," Gray said with a shudder.

"Yeah, I'll pass," said Natsu.

Happy frowned thoughtfully. "Y'know," he said with wide eyes. "Chocolate covered cat treats might not be so bad."

Natsu snatched the bowl away. "Nuh-uh, little buddy. No chocolate for you. You know what happens when you eat that stuff."

"I thought only dogs get sick from chocolate," Lucy said.

"They do. Happy gets higher than theoretical astrophysics when he eats it instead."

She raised her eyebrows. "Is that an Exceed thing?"

"No, it's just Happy being one of the weirdest creatures in the galaxy."

Happy's tail drooped sadly. "It's not that weird…and I really like chocolate."

Gray snorted. "I wonder why."

Lucy narrowed her eyes at him. "Gray Fullbuster, where is your shirt?"

He glanced down at his bare chest in a panic. "Aw crap, where'd it go now? I had it two seconds ago!"

"Annnd there he goes again," Natsu snickered. "Can't keep your clothes on even in front of a lady. Shame on you, droopy eyes."

Gray jabbed a finger in the smug thief's face. "Now see here, you flaming—" He broke off as Natsu abruptly grabbed the offending hand. "Hey, what're you—"

Natsu tilted his head. "Since when were you into rings?"

"Huh?"

"The gold band on your ring finger," he said, gesturing towards it. "You never used to wear rings."

Gray glanced to the side shiftily. "Oh, that. Um…"

Happy leaned over to look at it and choked, his eyes popping out. "Isn't that a North Alvaresian wedding ring?"

"What?" Natsu's eyes shot up to stare at Gray. "Wait, is this—do you mean—you—?"

The engineer scratched the back of his head awkwardly. "Yeah. Almost two months ago now."

"You—you and Juvia?"

He nodded. "Yeah."

Lucy leaned forward, brow furrowed in confusion. "Hold on—you're _married?_ "

"And you didn't invite me?"

Natsu's voice had taken on an odd, quiet tone that Lucy had only heard once before, when she had gotten flustered at him calling her Luce and implied that he wasn't her friend. Gray looked up, but then dropped his gaze again guiltily.

"I'm…I'm sorry, Natsu," he said wretchedly. "Juvia's mother had just been diagnosed with leukemia, and it was bad, really bad. The doctors weren't expecting her to live much more than a month. She said that her final wish was to stand at her daughter's wedding. Juvia and I had been talking about it for a while, and, well…it seemed obvious what to do. But…" He swallowed heavily. "You'd disappeared a couple weeks before that, and no one from the guild could tell us where you were. Hell, we even tried to ask your brother, but he had no idea either. We didn't know what else to do, and Juvia's mom didn't have much time left. It was three days after the wedding that we heard a rumor that you'd gotten captured by the Federation, and by then…well, there wasn't much we could do."

"But…why didn't you tell me about it?" His voice was still unnaturally soft. "I mean, you've been here three weeks now, and you didn't say a word."

Gray still couldn't seem to meet Natsu's eyes. "I guess I was waiting for the right time. I knew this wouldn't go over well, and, well…" He bit his lip. "S'pose I should've gotten it out right off the bat, huh?"

"Um, _yeah,_ " Happy said emphatically. "You getting _married_ is kinda something we'd want to know A.S.A.P., y'know?"

He sighed and leaned on the table, rubbing his hand over his eyes. "I see that now. I'm sorry, I really screwed up."

"Yeah," Natsu agreed. "Yeah, you did."

"But." Gray lowered his hand and finally managed to meet Natsu's eyes. "I didn't have a best man."

Natsu blinked. "You didn't?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"You weren't there."

The rosy-haired thief exhaled shakily. "Gray…"

He shook his head slightly. "I may have had the ceremony without you, but there was no way in hell I was going to let anyone take your place. I know it's not nearly the same as being there, and I know it doesn't make up for what I did, but—"

" _Gray._ " Natsu cut his friend off loudly. "Shut up for a second." He seemed to be mulling something over. Then he announced, "You're right. It doesn't make up for what you did, which is why in the very distant future or possible alternate dimension when I get married, you are officially not invited."

Gray started to speak again, but Natsu held up a hand, stopping him. " _However,_ " he said slowly, glaring at the man across the table. "I do fully expect you to crash."

"Na—"

"And forcibly occupy the possibly vacant best man's position."

A large, brilliant grin broke out on Gray's face, the first true smile Lucy had ever seen him wear. Not a smug quirk of the mouth, not a knowing smirk, but a genuine, happy smile.

"Thanks man," he said.

Natsu narrowed his eyes at him. "Remember, you're crashing, so you're gonna hafta fight me to get that position."

"Fight? I think you mean demolish."

"I don't think so—you're gonna be all soft and flabby from being a husband."

"It'll still be way more than I need to kick your flaming butt."

"You wish! The hardest part will be rolling your fat gut out of the way of the party."

"Yeah, after I've eaten all your food."

"Why you—"

The two of them continued to bicker in perfect rhythm even as they stood, threw out whatever leftovers they hadn't eaten (Lucy had made it clear that she didn't want to see an iota of trash aboard their ship) and headed out of the room. Soon the sounds of their arguing had faded into silence.

"Well that was fun. They're such drama queens sometimes, aren't they Lucy?" Happy glanced at Lucy, who hadn't moved an inch for several minutes now. "Um, Lucy? You okay?"

Lucy sat frozen in her seat with her tightly clasped hands pressed firmly against her lips, eyes brimming with unshed tears.

"That was," she croaked. "The most touching, heart-throbbing, beautiful, and emotional bromantic moment I've ever seen. Or maybe that's just ever happened. I'm not sure which."

"Okaaaay then…"

She stood. "Excuse me. I'm going to sob hysterically in my room for the next hour or so. Call me if you need anything." And with that, she too left.

Happy looked around the now empty room and sighed. "Why am I friends with such weirdos?" he muttered to himself, and emptied the last crumbs of his cat treats into his mouth.

OOOOO

After they'd gotten about week out without running into anything life-threatening or even remotely dangerous, the crew of the _Torus_ finally managed to sort themselves out and started figure out what they needed. Lucy was given enough time to take a proper inventory of the ship's supplies and discovered to her dismay that they were dismally low on essentials. As they'd noted before, there were no spare clothes at all on board, and the only extra blankets and such aboard the ship had been all but ruined when they'd gone down to Rura Penthe. They still didn't have any decent weapons and Natsu reported that they didn't have very many drone parts left in stock to activate their drone systems.

Gray had never recovered his shoes from the slaver ship, so he spent his days aboard the ship padding around barefoot and trying not to step on the random bits of machinery scattered about the ship that try as she might, Lucy never seemed to be able to clean up entirely. They were also running out of basic hygiene supplies. Natsu and Lucy had only one half a tube of toothpaste for the both of them and Gray had neither a toothbrush nor toothpaste. Lucy was down to her last bottle of shampoo and moisturizer and was in full panic mode, and Natsu was babying his scarf which Lucy had been unable to sew up due to their lamentable lack of sewing materials.

In addition to lacking day-to-day items, however, they soon found themselves facing a much worse problem. The dilithium crystals that powered the ship were decaying. At first Gray thought the problem was minor and could be easily remedied through exposure to high-energy photons that were emitted by fission reactors that powered most ships' subsystems, but upon examining their ship they found that Engi ships did not run off of fission reactors. Gray maintained that it wasn't worth panicking over, as the next starbase they reached would almost certainly be able to re-crystallize them, but as they kept flying through space and failed to encounter any signs of intelligent life, worry began to creep up on them.

It got to the point where Gray's breath was so bad and where Happy couldn't get his fur clean and where they were only using warp jumps three times a day to conserve energy that Natsu was constantly on the lookout for the nearest starbase, scanning the various sectors with a kind of mad desperation. Even this hope was extinguished, however, when Happy pointed out that even if they did reach a starbase, they were fresh out of any money to buy things.

"Maybe we can work for some money," Lucy said gloomily one day as they gathered in the bridge. It once the fourth week with no outside contact kicked it, they had started collecting around Natsu at the helm in their free time in hopes of seeing something. "Make some cheap cash that way."

"Do we have anything of value we can pawn off?" asked Gray.

Natsu snorted. "That's cute."

"How 'bout we turn one of them in for their bounty, then break 'em out again?" Happy suggested, gesturing at the two thieves.

An evil glint appeared in Natsu's eyes. "That's not a bad idea," he said with a sly glance at Gray. The engineer's slanted eyes narrowed even further.

"I dunno what you're thinking, pal, but whatever it is—"

"ABSOLUTELY not," Lucy interjected with a fierce glare in Natsu and Happy's direction. "We are not embarking on another one of your half-baked, hare-brained schemes to get us a couple coins. If we're going to get any, it's going to be in a normal, s _afe_ manner."

Natsu slumped. "You're no fun."

"I still say we just steal some stuff," yawned Gray.

"From what ship, droopy eyes?"

"Did either of you hear what I just said?" Lucy snapped. "SAFE."

Gray shrugged. "Hey, stealing is safe when you're with us. Master thieves, remember?"

She rubbed her temples. "Master thieves that both got themselves caught trying to steal a Federation cruiser."

"Then enlighten us, O Wise One. How _could_ we have stolen those ships?"

"You're asking me? It's not like I studied how to steal my own ship!"

Natsu grinned. "Hey, then don't go making fun of those who did. We'll get it in the end."

Lucy rolled her eyes. "Oh, you're both impossible."

"Well then, whaddaya wanna do? We gotta get supplies somehow. If stealing's off the table, then I'm fresh outta ideas."

Lucy adopted a thinking pose, hand on her chin. "Oh, I don't know. Maybe we could just _send out a distress signal._ " She punctuated the end of her sentence with another glare. "I would have thought that would be obvious. It's what most ships in our position would do."

Gray made a face. "A distress signal? What's that gonna do for us?"

"Someone will pick it up and help us out," Lucy explained less-than-patiently.

"What, you think they're just gonna hand us some cash and be on their merry way?" Natsu snorted. "More likely they'll attack us and strip us for scrap."

"You'd be surprised," said Lucy hotly. "Back when I was on the _Zodiac,_ we picked up a ton of distress signals from ships in dire straits and helped them out. Usually the ship in distress would offer us something in return for whatever they needed, and everyone went home happy."

"So what would we give 'em? Like I said before, we don't exactly have anything of value."

"We could give them some of our drone parts," Happy offered. "Those are kind of valuable."

"And give up our only means of defending ourselves? Not likely."

"How 'bout doing some repair work or giving them upgrades?" asked Gray. "I'm pretty good and boosting reactors up a couple levels."

"That might work," Lucy mused. "As long as they actually need some."

Natsu raised an eyebrow skeptically. "Are we sure we want to do this?"

Gray shrugged in reply. "You got a better idea?"

The other thief grumbled under his breath as he reached for the button to give off the distress signal. "I still don't think this is gonna work, but okay…"

He hit the button. The crew waited for several seconds with bated breath before Happy announced: "That was a letdown."

"Well what did you expect?" chuckled Gray. "For us to hit the button and a ship to magically materialize in front of us?"

The cat twitched his ears awkwardly. "Kinda, yeah…"

He shook his head. "C'mon Happy, let's go to engineering. I want to brainstorm some ideas for upgrades."

"Aye sir!" The two of them left the room, leaving Natsu and Lucy alone. She looked out the screen at the stars around them.

"How fast do you think they'll come?" she asked.

Natsu shrugged. "Could be any time from a couple hours from now 'til next week. Who knows?"

"I hope Gray's breath doesn't kill us before then."

He laughed. "I think there're some gas masks in the cargo bay if we need 'em."

"Mmm." She looked down at her hands. The nails on her right hand, whose growth had been accelerated by the chronometric particles, had grown so long that she'd had to cut them off with a knife and almost sliced a finger off. Her other hand, however, still had very long nails that she really needed to cut as well, but didn't want to risk it.

The more she thought about it, the more she decided that her nails represented her at the moment. She had always kept her nails neatly groomed and manicured in the past; now they were wild and unkempt and uneven to boot. She herself was like that too. Back on the _Zodiac_ , she had always been a calm, orderly person that never lost her temper or did anything rash. She had always thought things through before taking action and it had been what had gotten her so far in her career.

But now she was the opposite. Her things were all over the place. There was no semblance of order to how she went about her duties. She yelled at everyone around her more than she'd ever raised her voice in her life, and everyone was completely fine with it. There was no schedule, no time for eating and time for sleeping. No shifts, no designated duties. Here there was only the moment, what needed to be done and what didn't. At first she'd been so taken aback by it that she hadn't really known how to handle herself, but now that she was used to it, she started to wonder: which one did she prefer? The order of her old ship, while calm and structured and so much easier to work with, reminded her of the unpleasant atmosphere of her home and her family back on Magnolia. But the chaos of the _Torus_ made her wonder for the first time if this was what it was like to be truly free.

"You okay?" The sound of Natsu's voice jerked her out of her reverie.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she said with a slight shake of her head. "Just thinking."

"You know," Natsu said slowly. "With this distress signal…a Federation ship might show up. You could go home pretty soon."

"Oh…I suppose you're right." Shouldn't that thought make her happier? He seemed to pick up on that.

"Okay seriously, what's up? That's not the reaction I would've expected."

She sighed. "I don't know. Have you…" She bit her lip. "Have you ever had to choose between two things you really wanted, but didn't know which one you wanted more?"

"Well duh, 'course I have. Everyone does."

"How do you pick which one to take?"

He picked at a spot on his face. "I guess I try and think about not which one I want, but which one I need. A lot of times you need one more than you need the other."

"And…how do you tell which one you need?"

"You just know," he said with a shrug.

"That's not really helpful."

"Uh…then I guess, um, I guess it's something you just can't do without. Something you can't _live_ without."

She blinked. Something she couldn't live without?

"Although I guess that's a bit extreme if you're trying to choose between potato and barbecue chips."

The absurdity of that remark caught her by surprise, prompting her to burst out in giggles. "Of course you'd think of food."

"You're not?"

Her body shook with another wave of laughter. "Not quite, but I think I'd infinitely prefer food over what I've actually got rolling around in my head."

"That sucks. But hey, remember." He gave her a bright smile. "If you ever need to get stuff off your chest, you can tell us. We may not be therapists, but we can still listen. I mean, that is," he amended, "if you want us to."

Something about that smile sent a warm feeling shooting down her body from her head to the tips of her fingers and toes. Before she really knew what she was doing, she had gotten up from her seat and flung her arms around her friend's neck.

He shifted slightly with surprise. "Oh, hey there Luce. Okay." Hesitantly he put his arms around her and patted her back. "I guess it's Hug Time. I can do Hug Time."

"Thanks Natsu," she mumbled into the crook of his neck. "I mean it. Thank you for being here."

"Sure, no problem," he said, still patting her back with quick, light taps. "I mean, it's not like I'm going anywhere."

"Good. Make sure you don't."

"Don't worry," he promised. "I won't."

From the door, Gray and Happy silently watched the scene before them play out. They had come back to ask their fellow crewmembers about their opinion on a particular upgrade, but they both wordlessly agreed upon seeing the heartwarming embrace to wait.

Gray felt Happy's tail flick against his leg and looked down. The Exceed was staring at Natsu and Lucy with a decidedly unsettling expression. Acting swiftly, Gray reached down and yanked the cat out of the door, letting it swish closed behind them.

"Oh no," he hissed to him. "I know that look on your face. It's the same one you wore when I first met Juvia. I'm telling you Happy, whatever insane ideas you've got rattling around in that fuzzy little tin can of a head of yours, drop 'em. Now."

"I don't know what you mean," Happy protested innocently.

"Like hell you don't," snorted Gray. "Listen: it's not gonna work. Not with them."

"What makes you say that? You and Juvia turned out fine."

"That's because Juvia knew exactly what she was getting into. We were compatible in every way; never mind what I thought at first. But them?" He gestured at the door behind them. "Happy, he's a notorious thief wanted across the galaxy. Lucy's a _Federation officer_ with a decently high ranking and a huge career in front of her. Hell, it's probably in her job description to turn him in. Not to mention that he kidnapped her!"

"She doesn't seem to mind anymore," Happy said smugly.

"She doesn't really have much of a choice—not until we get to a Federation starbase, anyway."

"You're just making excuses."

"Excuses?" Gray echoes in disbelief. "Happy, she doesn't know half of what there is to know about him, and he seems fine not telling her! I mean fucking hell, he didn't even mention he was an Etherious until they were together for what, three weeks?"

"So?" Happy looked mulish. "They totally like each other. You're really raining on my parade here, Gray."

"Forget getting rained on, your parade needs to get shut down. You can't have a relationship where the partners don't know major details about the other!"

"Since when did you get so wise and knowledgeable on relationships?"

He gave the Exceed a hard stare. "Since I got married."

"Oh, and that makes you an expert now?"

With a frustrated sigh Gray raked his fingers through his hair. "Happy, just trust me on this, okay? If they get there on their own that's one thing, but don't go pushing them into things they may not want."

Happy folded his arms sullenly. "Fine, I'll wait," he grumbled. "For now, anyway. Although if they keep going on like that I'll hardly have anything to do anyway."

"Who keeps going on like what?" The door behind them swished open to reveal a curious Lucy.

Both male's heads whipped around to stare at her. "Nothing," they chimed in unison.

She raised an eyebrow disbelievingly. "Okaaay then…"

They both cracked guilty smiles that did nothing to allay the blonde's suspicions. "Didn't you say you two were going to engineering to work on upgrade ideas?" she asked with a tilt of her head.

Gray nodded emphatically. "Oh yeah, we were—"

"And we did—" Happy added.

"We just wanted to, y'know—"

"—ask Natsu about some stuff—"

"—and we were gonna go see him—"

"—about to, we mean. We didn't actually, uh, go in yet—"

"—and we definitely didn't see anything—"

"—because we didn't go in yet—"

"—I mean, assuming there was anything to see in the first place, 'cause there wasn't—"

"—but we wouldn't know, 'cause we haven't gone in—"

"—so we're good, right?" Gray finished with a weak grin.

"Sure," Lucy said with a weary shake of her head. "Whatever helps you sleep at night." She moved past them and headed out of the medbay into the hall. Happy and Gray both let out relieved sighs and went to talk to Natsu about the possible upgrades to offer ships as payment for supplies.

That would have required other ships to show up, however. Three days passed since they first sent out the distress signal and not one other life seen was to be detected in the whole vastness of space. Finally midway during the fourth day another ship showed up, but refused to give any supplies without receiving all of the _Torus's_ weapons and drone parts in payment. Needless to say, Natsu refused, and they were left without supplies once more.

The next ship to show up tried to scam them into giving them a free upgrade, but after a few well-placed drone attacks the other ship quickly admitted to having scarcely more supplies than the _Torus_ did. After sending over a few measly scrap bits and a pathetic amount of money, the ship hurriedly left their space.

A week after sending out the distress signal a third ship showed up, this time proving Natsu's concerns valid. It attacked them without a single word, and it was only thanks to Natsu's brilliant piloting and sheer luck aiding Happy with the drones that they survived. Unfortunately the attacking ship managed to escape and the crew was left with nothing but a few less drone parts.

Eventually they came across a barren planet being orbited by a massive plasma storm and decided that the best course of action was to wait inside of it. The storm would put a massive drain on their engines and shields, but it would lessen the chance of someone attacking them, as any other ships in range would also suffer the side effects. To conserve what little energy that was left in the crystals, they decided to run off of auxiliary power for life support only, thus disabling the engines. Fortunately the storm did not block the distress signal, and so they waited.

And waited.

They waited so long that Lucy was down to the last watered-down remains of her shampoo and the boys had resorted to washing themselves with water and dish soap that they'd received from the ship that tried to scam them. Happy was a little stinkball, and Natsu and Lucy's breath had joined Gray's in the lethal gas department.

But finally, two and half weeks after they'd sent out the distress signal, and nearly six weeks after Gray had joined them, a ship responded.

With a joyous cry over the intercom Happy informed them that a ship had responded to their signal, and the three of them raced frantically to join him in the bridge.

"Are you sure?" Natsu pressed. "It might be another one of those assholes like the first one that basically wants our ship."

"No, I think this one's for real," Happy said. "They gave a really nice reply to our call."

"Well, we'll find out in a few seconds," Lucy said. "They're coming into range any second now."

"On screen," Natsu ordered.

The monitor flickered on. The image was patchy due to interference from the storm, but it was enough to see the oncoming ship swing around the planet like a boomerang in slow motion. The hull was a dark smoky gray with electric yellow lines streaking through it like lightning bolts. The shape of the ship was oval with two large dorsal fins on each side. It looked like a giant thundercloud.

"Oh _shit,_ no way!"

Lucy tore her eyes away from the screen at the sudden exclamation to stare at her crewmates. Natsu, who had spoken, looked positively gleeful, while Gray and Happy were exchanging apprehensive glances. When no one said anything else, she cleared her throat loudly.

"Uh, anybody want to tell me what's going on here?" Still nothing. "Hello? Do you guys know that ship or something?"

Natsu finally managed to drag his gaze away from the oncoming vessel to shoot her an excited look. "It's the _Thunder Legion,_ " he breathed with relish. "That's Laxus's ship. I'd know it anywhere."

"Laxus?"

"Laxus Dreyar. He's one of Fairy Tail's top thieves," Gray explained. He looked decidedly unhappy. "And he knows it. I s'pose it's because of that that he's not the nicest bloke in the world, if y'know what I mean."

"Oh, so you _know_ him?" Lucy was ready to cry with relief. "If he's your friend from your guild, that means he'll help us, right?"

"'Friend' isn't the term I would use," Happy said, making a face. "The guy's a total jerk. We'll be lucky if he even considers helping us out once he realized who's on this ship."

"We don't need his help," Natsu cried. "We'll beat it outta him!" He slammed his fists together enthusiastically.

Now Lucy was flat-out confused. "Huh? Beat it out of him?"

Gray heaved a world-weary sigh. "Since the day he joined the guild, Natsu's been obsessed with beating Laxus in a battle in space. I mean, he obsessed over beating everyone, but he doesn't seem to get the hint with Laxus."

"Get the…oh." Understanding dawned on Lucy, and she smirked. "I'm guessing their fights don't go too well for him."

"Putting it lightly, yes."

"What about fighting him in person? Is that any better?"

He snorted. "Hardly. In fistfights, Natsu just gets electrocuted until he's out cold on the floor."

"Electrocuted?"

"You'll see what I mean when you get a look at the guy."

"Today'll be different!" Natsu yelled. "I'm gonna whip his butt!"

Happy raised a paw. "I'd just like to remind the pilot that the _Thunder Legion_ is a galaxy-class starship fully equipped to take on an admiral's ship, and that we are currently floating around in a fifth-class Engi transport vessel."

"What's your point?"

Gray smacked Natsu across the back of the head. "His _point,_ idiot, is that we'd be demolished in six seconds flat. It wouldn't even be a fight."

"Aw c'mon, we could do it!"

Lucy shook her head in exasperation. "You never cease to amaze me, Natsu." She frowned, thinking. "Okay," said to Gray and Happy. "You two get him out of sight and keep him quiet. If what you say is true and Laxus is more likely to help a stranger than you guys, then let me do the talking and stay out of sight." The two of them nodded and dragged Natsu to the side as he squirmed and fought.

A button at the comm lit up, signaling that they were being hailed. Lucy gestured once more for them to _keep Natsu quiet_ before she opened a channel.

"This is the _Thunder Legion,_ " a deep male voice said. "We received your distress call and are here to assist. What's your problem?"

"This is the _Torus,_ " Lucy replied sweetly, trying to sound as nice as possible. It was often the best way to deal with temperamental people. "We've been on our own for a while now and are really low on supplies; we were wondering if you'd be able to spare any?"

"Depends on what you need. We've got a surplus of day-to-day items and some missiles, but we've been out of the loop ourselves for a while now. This area's pretty empty 'til you get to the Zoltan homeworlds."

"That should be fine," Lucy said, relieved. "I can send you a list of things we need. It's not much, as we're not a big crew, but it's getting pretty horrible here. We're especially in need of high-energy photons because our dilithium crystals are decaying, but…" she continued to list the things they needed. The _Thunder Legion_ was quite compliant, willing to give over most of their requests.

"We can give you some of our spare power cells, but we're kinda low on drone parts so I can't really give you any of those."

"Oh don't worry, that's fine," Lucy assured him. "We should have enough to defend ourselves until we reach the Zoltan homeworlds, but instead would we be able to—"

"Shit Happy, hold him down!"

"I'm trying, but he's wriggling too much!"

"Nnngh—FIGHT ME, LAXUS! _Mmmph_ —"

"Shut up, moron!"

Lucy froze in horror as Natsu's outburst rang out through the whole room. Slowly, she turned her head to give the struggling trio the iciest glare she could muster. Gray mouthed _sorry_ and Happy gave a helpless what-were-we-supposed-to-do shrug while keeping a tight grip on the struggling thief.

There was a pregnant pause over the comm. Then the man said, "What was that?"

Lucy gulped. "What was what?"

"That yell right now."

"Yell? I didn't hear anything."

" _Mmm—gonna roast his face off!_ "

She closed her eyes. "And I didn't hear that, either. Can we just pretend that you can't too?"

Another pause. Then the man snapped, "Ever, put 'em on screen."

Their monitor flickered to show them the captain of the other ship, and Lucy understood why Gray had mentioned electrocution. Laxus Dreyar was the biggest Zoltan she'd ever seen.

Zoltans were strange beings with the majority of their bodies composed of pure, harnessable energy. Humanoid in form, their bodies came in varying shades of glowing green, ranging from a dark forest green to a nearly electric yellow, depending on the type of energy they had running through them. They had the ability to charge systems on ships simply by walking into a room, causing the obscene amount of excess energy coursing through their bodies to flow to the systems. Zoltans were considered to be incredibly valuable aboard a starship and their services were highly sought-out.

Whilst being a deeply officious and obtuse people, they generally favored diplomacy over acts of aggression and were know for being fair and just in their dealings with others. However, Lucy thought as she stared at the being on screen before her, there were clearly some exceptions to those rules. Laxus was a vivid yellow-green color, well over eight feet tall and covered in what could only be massive amounts of muscle. There was a jagged scar over his glowing right eye and there was so much energy surrounding him that it was literally sparking around him. She noted with some surprise that he had short, spiky blond hair, as many Zoltans did not have hair. Maybe it was a regional thing. He had a long, fur-rimmed coat slung over his shoulders, and at the moment he looked anything but diplomatic.

"Oh," Lucy squeaked. "Um. Hello there."

"Where is he?" Laxus growled.

"He? Um, sorry, er, haven't the faintest clue who you're talking about," she said very quickly.

The giant Zoltan folded his arms. "I'm not stupid, woman. I'd know that little punk's obnoxious yelling anywhere."

She opened her mouth to reply and closed it again, nodding. Then she turned to Gray and Happy and, with one eye twitching, said with a forced calmness, "Let him up."

The instant his friends released him Natsu leapt to his feet and charged to the front of the room.

"Yo Laxus!" he roared. "I'm ready to pound your brains out!"

"Yeah, with your—" He checked the list Lucy had sent him. "—eight drone parts left. That's really gonna do the job. I'm shaking in my boots."

"Shuddap," Natsu growled. "I can take you any day."

He snorted. "Tell me Natsu—just how _are_ things on planet You Wish?"

The rosy-haired thief blinked, and frowned. "Planet…huh?"

"Good comebacks are wasted on you," the Zoltan said, shaking his head in disgust.

Lucy slapped her forehead in despair. "Natsu, please do us all a favor and go to the corner and just be quiet, okay?" She took him by the shoulder and steered him to a seat as he tried to work out what Laxus had said. "That's it. Now just sit tight and let the adults to the talking."

His frown deepened. "Hey, aren't I older than you?"

"Not at the moment," she said acidly. "Now _SIT._ "

He sat.

She turned back to face Laxus. "I apologize for the immaturity of my crewmate," she said formally. "I hope this will not impact your giving us aid?"

"I'll be honest," Laxus rumbled. "I'm not too keen on the idea of helping out that moron, or those two idiots behind you." He jerked his chin at Gray and Happy who were cowering in the background. "But you're hot for a human chick, and I was hoping I'd run into him anyway, so I suppose I'll still help you out.

She raised an eyebrow. _Hot for a human chick?_ Was she supposed to find that flattering?

"What do you mean, you were hoping you'd run into him anyway?" Happy asked timidly from the back.

"Oh right." He turned to a member of his crew, a rather pretty-looking woman with spectacles, long wavy brown hair, and emerald skin. The thin, translucent wings fluttering at her back led Lucy to believe that she was some kind of fly-alien, but she couldn't be sure. "Ever, where's that note from the capital I gave you?"

"You gave me no such note, sir." Her voice was stern as she adjusted her glasses.

"I didn't? Ah fuck, I must've left it back on Tortall." For a moment he looked vaguely disconcerted, but then he shrugged. "Eh, whatever. I remember the gist of it, anyway. Hey Natsu!" he called to the sulking thief. "I've got a message for you."

Natsu looked up in surprise. "A message?"

"Yeah, from your brother. He's been freaking out every since you ran away and really wants you to come home. Said something about a war and wanting to make sure you're safe."

A rather ugly expression crossed Natsu's face. "Sure he does. More like he wants his pet back where he can keep ahold of him."

Lucy glanced at him, confused. "What?"

At the back of the room, Gray nudged Happy and whispered, "See what I mean?"

Laxus scowled, electricity sparking off his hair. "Hey, don't get me involved in your family drama. I just delivered the message. I'll give you what you need to get your sorry asses outta here, and then I'm gone."

Lucy bowed low, the universal sign for _thank you very much for saving our butt._ "We appreciate what you're doing for us," she said. "I'm not sure how we can pay you back, but—"

"Don't worry about it," he grunted. "I just want to moving as soon as possible."

In the end Laxus was true to his word, giving them almost all of what they requested. To Gray's delight and the rest of the crew's relief they received a fantastically large supply of toothbrushes and toothpaste, together with boxes stuffed full of shampoo and conditioner. They were able to re-crystallize their dilithium and even managed to obtain some sewing materials for Lucy so she could patch up Natsu's scarf, but they didn't get any drone parts and Laxus flat-out refused to give them any clothes or shoes for Gray.

"We're not a charity organization," he told them shortly. "Nor am I your mommy buying you your clothes. You're gonna have to get your own wardrobe if you want it."

"With what money?" asked Natsu grumpily. He was still miffed about being banned from picking a fight. "Considering you're not giving us any."

"I'm not giving you free money, Dragneel."

"Well, we did offer an upgrade…" Lucy murmured hesitantly.

"Yeah, but we don't need one," Laxus said. "Just be happy with what we did give you and go make some cash on your own. Maybe you could prove that you're a part the guild and actually steal some stuff."

"Why you—"

"Natsu." Lucy cut him off with a heavy glare. "What did I tell you about picking a fight with the man giving us supplies for free?"

His spiky hair seemed to wilt. "Sorry," he muttered balefully.

They finished transporting the last bit of supplies. Once they were finished, Lucy twisted the boy's arms (literally in Natsu's case) and had each of them thank Laxus out loud. The Zoltan didn't even bother replying, instead cutting transmission and clearing the plasma storm before warping away. As fortunate as their encounter had been, Lucy was not sorry to see them go. There was something vaguely unsettling about talking to the other captain, as if she was a soldier waiting for a bomb to go off.

Their supplies may not have been fully restocked, but they were in a far better position than they had been a week previously. No longer worrying if their engines were going to give out after every jump, they were able to head off towards the Zoltan homeworlds with barely a hitch. All seemed well.

But as Lucy sat in her room and stared at the window at the rushing stars as they approached the next system, she thought back to Natsu's expression at the mention of his brother and wondered.

* * *

 **Bit of a choppy chapter, so if anything was unclear please let me know. And as always, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease review! I can't actually verbalize how much your reviews mean to me.**


	12. The Zoltan Homeworlds

**A/N: This chapter is dedicated to the fantastic sarara1.8, who made me my first piece of fanart ever! AAAAAA! And yes, I made it my cover. Because I want the whole world to see it. Really girl, you made me the happiest I've been in months.**

 **Now, my fantastic readers, a plea from your author: do not skim or skip this chapter. I know it may seem kinda boring because it isn't action-packed and has a lot of talking, but this sets up a LOT. Like, two of my three major plot points for this story are set up here, and it is all extremely important to the storyline. So please, for your sake so you don't get confuzzled, pay attention.**

 **And don't worry-some things may not make sense at the moment, like perhaps there won't be an explanation for certain actions or people just magically seem to know/assume things (or don't), but trust me-I'll cover everything in the end, it just may take a while, depending on what's going on in the story.**

 **Also, friendly reminder that this is unbeta'd, so I'm sorry for any mistakes.**

 **I've rambled on long enough-the time has come to shut mine trap. Enjoy the chapter!**

* * *

It took another week after leaving the plasma storm to reach the next sector. During that time Lucy managed to stitch Natsu's scarf back up and with his precious family token restored, he was in much better spirits. In fact, they all were. So when the Zoltan outposts signaling the entrance to their homeworld territory finally appeared, the crew of the _Torus_ was more than pleased. The Zoltans at the outpost, however, were not.

"Identify yourselves," a flat, tinny-sounding voice commanded over the comm.

Lucy paused only to glance briefly at Natsu and the others before saying, "This is the _Torus._ We require permits to travel through your space to reach the…" she squinted at the name on the star chart in front of her. "Klom? Yes, sorry, the Klom system." The Klom system would set them on a course on through the Mantis controlled sectors and hopefully from there to the Federation.

There was a short pause on the Zoltans' end. Then the voice said, "You will submit yourself to a security sensor sweep to ensure that there are no harmful items aboard your vessel save for self-defense weaponry. Any toxic or nuclear weaponry will be confiscated, in addition to certain foreign consumable products and various medicinal items that are deemed hazardous by Zoltan law."

Lucy cleared her throat. "Understood." She closed the channel. A loud sigh of relief behind her caused her to turn around and raise an eyebrow and Gray questioningly.

"I was afraid they'd ask for a crew roster," he explained upon seeing her confusion. "Sometimes when entering a species' home territory they can profile the crew of a ship they think is suspicious. That's why I hate crossing borders the normal way—it's way too easy to get caught."

"Oh," Lucy said, taken aback. "Well, why didn't you tell me that before we came this way?"

He exchanged glances with Natsu, who shrugged. The dark haired thief looked back at her. "You seemed…stressed," he said. "I didn't want to pressure you anymore than you needed to be."

"And you three getting your wanted butts hauled in by the local authorities would totally relieve stress." She nodded firmly. "I see. Thank you for your consideration—that was very thoughtful of you."

A drop of sweat slowly made its way down Gray's brow as he gulped. Natsu pretended he couldn't hear the conversation and examined his fingernails with feigned interest, whistling to himself.

The ship suddenly was illuminated in a bright yellow-green glow emitted from the outpost. The four of them instinctively covered their eyes with cries of shock.

"Aw geez, what kind of scanner is that?" Natsu yelped.

Happy curled up in a little blue ball. "I don't like this."

The light continued to shine for a few more moments before it shut off. Seconds later the Zoltan's voice came over the comm once more.

"We apologize for the inconvenience. You have been scanned and have qualified for a temporary Zoltan ship permit that will expire on the date specified in the document. We shall send it over promptly, together with informational brochures about our homeworlds. However," it added, "we would like to issue a warning to you as well.

"As you may or may not be aware, we the Zoltans, while an independent people on good terms with various planetary groups and associations, are a part of the Alvarez Empire in that we are allied to its main forces. Due to the massive civil war that has erupted closer to the heart of the empire, we have begun to seal off our borders to certain ships. We will not take part in this conflict, as civil war is against our nature. We believe in peace and diplomacy, and defend ourselves only against those with more primitive mindsets than ours. Because of this we wish to make certain terms clear: you shall not provoke a conflict within our systems. You shall not broach the topic of civil war, nor shall you openly take sides. This is a neutral zone, and failure to treat it as such shall result in your immediate detainment and possible eradication.

"We wish you a pleasant journey through our system."

The transmission ended, and silence pervaded the bridge where the four of them were gathered.

"Well," Gray said loudly. "That was dramatic."

"'Massive civil war?'" Lucy echoed. "I knew that there was some internal conflict going on in the Empire, but I didn't realize it had gotten that bad."

Natsu frowned. "This must be recent. There wasn't anything like this going on when Happy and I left."

"I think it started right after, actually," said Gray. "But I'd heard that it was just some political stuff. Not an actual full-blown civil war. Then again, I've been out of the loop almost as long as you have at this point, so I wouldn't really know."

Happy scratched his stomach. "Maybe they were exaggerating."

"I don't know, Zoltans don't really seem the type to exaggerate," said Lucy thoughtfully.

"Ah, whatever." Natsu shrugged carelessly. "It's not like we're heading deeper into the Empire anyway, so this shouldn't bother us too much. Things only'll get dicey if the Federation gets involved."

"I think they already are," Lucy murmured. "Or at least, they were thinking about it."

"How do you know?" asked Happy.

"When I got stranded with Natsu, the mission of my ship was to assess the situation of political unrest in the Alvarez Empire," she explained. "The whole ship was on super high alert. I never got to find out what was going on though, thanks to a certain someone." Natsu flushed.

"That's not good," Gray commented. "Natsu's right—if the Federation gets involved in another planetary coalition's civil war things could get real dicey."

"Well, hopefully things won't come to that. Maybe we'll just run into someone who isn't even related to this mess and it'll all be good."

Happy snorted. "Keep dreaming, Lucy," he said in a singsong voice. "Nothing's ever that easy with us. Oh, hey!" He tapped the screen on his console. "The Zoltans sent us the stuff. Cool!"

"Awesome," Natsu said. "What've we got?"

Lucy pulled up the permit and informational brochures on her console screen as well. "Most of the main planets are out of our way," she said, examining them. "But it looks like there are a few outposts and stores on the way to the Klom system. We should be able to stock up on some stuff if we manage to get some money to buy them with."

"Hey Lucy!" Happy exclaimed. "It looks like they've got a Federation starbase here!"

Her heart seemed to stop for an instant. "They—they do?" she stammered.

"Why are you surprised?" asked Gray. "The Zoltans are on good terms with the Federation. I know they're pretty far apart, but it still stands to reason that they'd share starbases."

Lucy bit her lip. "I guess I…I guess I didn't think about it," she murmured.

Home might be a couple light years away…She might be on the way back to her beloved _Zodiac_ in less than a week. She waited for the surge of joy to flood her senses as it would have a month ago, but to no avail. Instead, the same empty feeling that had come over her in the plasma storm waiting for a ship filled her stomach. For some reason, she felt the urge to look at Natsu to see his reaction to the news.

She chanced a glance in his direction and felt her mouth go dry. The rosy-haired thief was staring at the dashboard registering the starbase's existence with an inscrutable expression. He seemed for the most part rather relaxed, but she saw that he was fiddling with his scarf. More specifically, he was running his fingers over the stitch in the scaly material where Lucy had sewn it back together. But then his eyes flicked up from the console to meet hers and he gave her a blinding smile.

"All right!" he cheered. "We're real close to getting you home now."

She swallowed heavily. "Yeah," she said quietly. "Yeah, we are."

He flipped her a double thumbs up. "Hey, perk up. Soon you won't hafta deal with me and my crappy ships anymore."

Far from cheering her up, those words seemed to only make her feel worse. Lucy managed a weak smile at him, but said nothing. She wasn't sure what she would have said, anyway. There weren't words to describe the sick feeling that was growing in her gut. The only thing she could figure out based on these sensations was that it would be a very bad idea to leave the crew of the _Torus._

She didn't utter another work for the rest of the way to the starbase, and no one tried to make her. They seemed to pick up on her uneasy mood and gave her the space she needed. However, it didn't help all that much. By the time they actually reached the Federation outpost, she was pretty sure that if she tried to open her tightly sealed mouth she would vomit all over the floor.

"Um, Lucy…" Happy said tentatively. "We're in range. You can talk to them now."

All she could manage was another painfully dry swallow. But then a familiar smoky scent filled her nose and she looked up to see Natsu standing next to her with an encouraging smile on his face.

He clapped a warm hand onto her shoulder and said, "Go on, what're ya waiting for?"

Warmth seemed to spread through her body from where he touched her and she nodded, suddenly filled with determination. She reached out with a pale hand and hailed the starbase.

"This is Federation Starbase 436 Alpha-Tango," a cool female voice said. "How may we be of service?"

"Hi," she said nervously. "I'm Lieutenant Lucy Heartfillia of the Federation starship _Zodiac,_ registration number NCC-1827. I was separated from my ship over a month ago and have been trying to get back since. This starbase is the first Federation contact I've had since then. Is it possible I'd be able to get a transport back to Federation space?"

"Let me see…NCC-1827…Lieutenant Lucy Hearfillia, was it?" the woman said. "Please give me a moment to look you up."

There was a lump in Lucy's throat that refused to go away no matter how hard she swallowed. Her entire body was a tense wire with nerves as she waited for the woman to continue. Without thinking she reached up to her shoulder to put her hand on top of Natsu's, and he responded by gripping her shoulder more tightly.

"Miss Heartfillia?" The woman was back.

Lucy leaned forward slightly with anticipation. "Yes?"

"I'm sorry, but we have no record of anyone with your name serving under the Federation."

All her nerves froze in her body, leaving her numb. "What?"

"There is no Lucy Heartfillia in our records."

"That… that can't be right," she stammered. "I'm the communications officer aboard the starship _Zodiac;_ I've served aboard it for three years now. Are you sure you spelled my name right?"

"I have tried multiple variations of the name given," the woman replied. "I do apologize but we have found no results. The ship you mentioned is registered as a Federation vessel, but we do not have a copy of the crew roster for comparison. However, there is a possibility that our registered member database is incomplete or outdated—we are one of the furthest bases from Federation headquarters, after all."

"But then what—what should I do?"

"I apologize once more, but we cannot accept you aboard this starbase for transportation without the proper credentials. As far as we are concerned, you do not exist as a Federation officer and therefore cannot be treated as one. I suggest you head further into Federation territory in hopes that you appear on other officer lists."

"I—I see," Lucy said blankly. This couldn't be happening to her. "Thank you for your time." She cut the transmission and stared at the console uncomprehendingly.

"Is it uh, _normal_ for the Federation to not recognize its own officers?" asked Gray.

"No," she murmured through still numb lips. "No, it's not. I have no idea what's going on."

"Hey, it could be like the lady said," Happy said bracingly. "It might just be that we're too far out."

"Maybe…"

"But it's weird," Natsu said in a hard voice, his grip on her shoulder almost painful now. "I mean, first your intergalactic bank accounts were frozen, and now a Federation starbase doesn't have a record of you on file? This doesn't feel like an accident."

"Woah, woah, wait a second," Gray said, waving his hands. "Hold up. Lucy, your bank accounts were frozen?"

She nodded. "Yeah. Back when it was just me and Natsu, a few days after I got stuck on his ship. I tried to use my money to get us some supplies and maybe even a new ship, but they told me that my accounts had been completely frozen. All of them. I don't have a single galactic credit to my name."

Happy's ears twitched. "A few _days?_ But that's not fast enough for you to be registered as a criminal, even if someone thought you were in cahoots with Natsu."

"That's what we thought," Natsu said. "But we ignored it 'cause we thought the Federation just got a mix up or whatever. But this is super weird and—"

"I know," Lucy broke in softly. "I know it's really strange, but can we please just keep on ignoring it? For now, at least?"

"Huh?" Surprised, Natsu pulled his hand away. The instant the warmth of his hand vanished Lucy felt a light ache where it had been and wished that she had held on. "Whaddaya mean, Luce? Aren't you worried about this?"

"I am, yes, but…there's nothing we can do about it right now. We're still extremely far out and well, like I said, there's not much we can do. If we get closer to home and things are still strange then maybe, but for now we need to focus on getting through the sector and on to Klom."

Her crewmates exchanged concerned glances with each other. "Are you sure, Lucy?" asked Gray.

"Yeah. Yeah, I am," she said, this time with confidence. There really was no point in worrying about it, after all. They had more important things to do.

Natsu stared at her for another brief moment before shrugging and cracking his knuckles. "Hokay then," he said. "It's up to you." He spun around to face Happy and pointed dramatically in his direction. "Onwards then, navigator! Lower the sails and set sail for the Klom system!"

Happy blinked. "We don't have sails."

"Aah, you get my point. Just set a course and get us there."

"Aye, sir! I mean, aye, aye, captain!"

Gray choked. "Are you some kind sea pirate?"

Natsu scowled. "Hey, pirates are awesome. Don't diss the pirates. They're basically what we are, anyway."

"Yeah, except we don't speak like we walked off the pages of three thousand year-old play script."

"Meh, y'dunno what you're talking about."

"I know more than you do, flame brain!"

"Watch it, ice princess—want me to give you a pirate beating?"

"What're you gonna make me do—walk the plank?"

"I think using you to mop the deck works just fine for me."

"Why don't you just try it, you little—"

"BOYS." Lucy interrupted them with a glare. "Grow up or you'll _both_ be mopping the floors for the next hour."

"Geez, fine," Natsu grumbled. "But only 'cause I really hate mopping. Happy, why aren't we moving?"

"Because you were too busy boosting your own ego to notice that we're being hailed."

All three of their heads shot up. "Huh?" Gray said. "Where's it coming from?"

"This big Zoltan cruiser pulled up near us while you guys were arguing," Happy said with chagrin. "I figured you guys would have noticed it. Sorry."

"God, don't apologize," Lucy said, flustered. "It's my fault, I should have been paying attention." She answered the hail. "This is the _Torus._ How may we be of assistance?"

"This is a Zoltan peace envoy," a high-pitched voice responded. "We carry no weapons or shielding and rely on the mercy of others to communicate our message."

"I…see," said Lucy slowly. "And?"

It continued. "We take your lack of elaborated response for interested contemplation." It began to talk at length about peace and harmony, but it was either beyond Lucy's simple mind or it was all nonsense. A quick glance at her crewmates told her that they had no idea what the Zoltan was going on about either.

After far too long of it speaking of topics way over their head, the Zoltan finally finished: "Please, spread the word of enlightenment to those that have not heard. Once you have, contact our brethren." The transmission cut out. A second later, a beep at Happy's console told them that the Zoltans had transmitted the coordinates of their so-called "brethren."

Lucy brushed her hair away from her face. "Well then."

"That was kind of funny," Happy said. "You couldn't get a single word in. I've never seen that happen to you, Lucy."

"I really hate diplomats," she muttered. "They have way too much time on their hands."

"So…do we go?" asked Gray. They all turned to Natsu.

He blinked. "Why're you all looking at me?"

Happy curled his tail. "Well, you're the boss, aren't you?"

Lucy shrugged. "I'm just the communications officer. I do what I'm ordered."

Gray folded his arms. "I don't decide where we go—I just make sure we get there in one piece."

A light pink dusted Natsu's cheeks and he didn't seem to know where to look. Instead, he stared at his sandals and scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. "Okay then," he muttered finally. "I guess, um, we'll do what they asked."

The other three crewmembers nodded and went to work at their respective tasks. Gray left the room and went over to engineering while Happy put in the coordinates given to them by the Zoltans, and Lucy headed for her quarters to go to the bathroom. It was never a good idea to try and negotiate with potentially hostile aliens with a full bladder.

Out of the corner of his eye Happy watched her leave and saw Natsu looking after her with a decidedly unhappy expression. Clearing his throat, he said in a helpful tone, "Y'know, she looks pretty out of sorts."

"Huh?"

"I mean, the whole not popping up in the database thing? She seems a little discombobulated over it."

He shifted uncomfortably. "She said not to worry about it for now."

The Exceed tried not to roll his eyes. "I know that Natsu, but she was really saying that for our benefit. She doesn't want _us_ to worry—that doesn't mean _she_ isn't going to."

"Oh." He frowned. "Then what should I do?"

Happy's eyes gleamed. "I'd say you should probably walk up to her and give her a giant k—"

"Oh I know!" Natsu exclaimed, his features brightening. "I'll give her a hug! She likes hugs. Thanks buddy!"

"—iss," finished Happy as his friend ran out the door. His ears drooped as he sighed, "Oh well… I guess that's better than nothing."

Natsu ran through the medbay and down the corridor after his blond crewmate. "Oi, Luce!" he called down the hall as she came into view. Surprised, she turned around to see what he wanted and let out a startled yelp as he crashed into her in a massive, crushing embrace.

Arms pinned to her side, the most she could do was try to inhale as her face was pressed against his lean chest. She tried to ask what he was doing, but before she could she heard him mumble into her hair, "Everything's gonna be alright, okay? We'll figure it all out."

Those two simple sentences created a lump in her throat that choked off her words and caused her eyes to prickle with tears. Blinking furiously, she nodded against him.

He pulled back slightly and gave her a warm smile. "Just wanted to let you know." And with that, he released her completely and darted back through the corridor he had so unceremoniously barreled down.

Lucy didn't know how long she stood there in the hallway, completely poleaxed. She only moved when the screaming of her bladder reminded her why she'd been heading towards her room in the first place. It took several minutes and three sessions of dousing her face with water before she felt ready enough to leave her room again, and just in time as well. As she stepped out of her quarters into the hallway, Happy said over the intercom, "Lucy, we're coming up to the coordinates the Zoltans gave us. You'd better hurry up and get back here."

She rushed onto the bridge just as they arrived at the location specified by the peace-loving Zoltan. Sliding smoothly into her overlarge seat, she said to Happy and Natsu, "What've we got?"

Natsu was intently scanning the surrounding system. "Nothing so far, but then again, those Zoltan weirdoes didn't really specify when their pals would be showing up."

Happy groaned. "So that means we're just gonna hafta sit here and wait?"

"Aaaactually, I take that back," Natsu said quickly. "There's a ship coming in on us, fast. But what the—" he broke off, frowning. Then his eyes widened. "Wait a second—fuck, that's not a Zoltan ship, that's an Alvaresian battle cruiser! That thing's armed!"

"What?" Lucy cried. "I thought the Zoltans said that they weren't letting in any of those ships because of the civil war!"

"Yeah I know, but clearly they got their shit wrong—yo, Gray!" he yelled into the intercom. "You hear this? Can we take on an Alvaresian battle cruiser?"

"Yeah I heard, and hell no! Not with this crappy ship! I know it's better than what you had before but it's no galaxy-class starship; it barely passes for a transport vessel!"

"Well then what should we—"

The helm beeped. "Natsu, they're hailing us!" Lucy said warningly.

He ran his fingers through his hair. "Crap. Uh, open a channel, I guess."

She hit the button that filled the room with the sound of a harsh, barking voice: "We've found you! You're not getting away this time!"

Lucy was so startled she forgot to say the traditional greeting. "S-sorry?"

"I can't imagine there's anything you could say that will save you," the voice snarled. "The rebellion must destroy those that are still loyal to the obsolete Empire."

"Um, I think you've got the wrong ship—"

"Lucy, they've raised their shields," Happy cautioned.

"Wait, wait!" she said hastily. "Perhaps there could be a reconciliation of our ideals without war?" She had no idea what their problem was so the most she could do was offer vague suggestions in the hopes that it would satisfy them.

"Our ideals are too different to be so easily reconciled. You think this could end any way but war?"

"Well, the galaxy is huge; you can easily find a place for your ideals elsewhere—"

"No! We will not be consigned to the backwaters of space just because we don't fit into your 'Empire ideals!'"

"They're powering up their weapons!" warned Happy.

"Then—then—" Frustrated, she slammed a fist down onto the console, trying desperately to remember what the Zoltan ship had been rambling on about. "That still won't bring you anything!" she finally managed to blurt out. "True progress can only be achieved without bloodshed!"

"What the—" Natsu gasped. "The ship just disappeared!"

Shocked, Lucy looked up at the viewer in time to see all indications of the Alvaresian ship fade away and for a Zoltan fleet to materialize around the _Torus._ A voice crackled on the communications channel. It was the captain of the ship they had met previously.

"Although your methods are crude and most certainly ineffective," the Zoltan said, "it is clear you took our previous meeting to heart. If your ship represents the Empire's willingness to adapt, then we shall do what we can to aid in their fight. We offer you a gift to help in your quest."

Natsu wrinkled his nose. "A gift?"

"We have analyzed your ship and found it to be inferior to ours. We offer you a new ship, free of charge."

Lucy's eyes widened and, glancing at the others to see their dumbfounded expressions, said to the Zoltan captain, "Um, hold on a moment please. We need to confer among ourselves." She muted the hail.

"Wait—but—wha—" Happy was shocked to the point of inarticulacy. "They're giving us a free ship?" he finally managed to squeak out.

Lucy raised an eyebrow. "Looks like it," she said, impressed. "But the question is: do we want it?"

"Hell yeah!" insisted Natsu emphatically. "Why wouldn't we?"

"Well, we just resupplied the _Torus_ and all, and we've gotten pretty comfortable…"

"I'll say!" chimed in Gray over the comm. "I finally get used to these wacko Engi engines and designs and now you want me to try and figure out a Zoltan's? C'mon man, that's seriously uncool."

Natsu shook his head. "Yeah, I know, but _guys._ " He pressed his palms flat against the edge of his seat and leaned in. "It's a _Zoltan ship._ "

"You're gonna have to tell me more than its name to sell me on it," replied Gray flatly.

Rolling his eyes, Natsu made a face before huffing, "Well for starters they have actual weapons, not this drone crap. Also, my bro always told me that if I could I should always get a ship with a Zoltan shield augmentation."

"What's so special about a Zoltan shield?" inquired Lucy.

"They're _awesome,_ " Happy answered with sparkling eyes. "They're a literal force field surrounding your ship that's separate from the actual shields, and it requires a certain amount of hits to go down. Only then can stuff start smashing your actual shields. They also prevent hacking and boarding, which is great when you're up against jerkish pirates."

She tilted her head, considering. "Alright, that does sound pretty handy," she admitted at last.

There was a stiff silence over the comm in which Lucy could envision the dark-haired engineer screwing up his face as if in anticipation of excruciating pain. "Fine," he snapped. "We can switch ships. Just lemme inspect the other one first, to make sure that it's in proper working order."

"You betcha!" Natsu crowed. "Hot damn guys, we've got ourselves a new ship! I'm all fired up now!"

Lucy giggled, and reopened the channel to the Zoltan ship. "We accept your generous gift," she informed them. "However, we'd like to inspect the ship to make sure that all is well with it before we trade."

"This is acceptable," the Zoltan said, and they watched on the viewscreen as the Zoltan fleet before them parted to reveal a small, sleek, dark green ship shaped like the double curve of a lobster claw. "This is the _Adjudicator,_ " the Zoltan said. "We hope she serves you well."

Natsu started to scan the ship. "Woo-hoo," he whistled. "This isn't a bad ship, not bad at all. I mean, it's still not great, but it's another step up from where we are now."

"Woah woah woah," Gray protested. "Don't do anything without me. Meet me in the transporter room, pyro!"

"Who're you callin' pyro?" Natsu squawked indignantly, but Gray was already gone. Grumbling to himself, Natsu headed out to meet him. "We'll contact you from the ship to let you know how it is," he said over his shoulder to Happy and Lucy, and left.

Lucy pursed her lips. "Should I be worried about them?" she said to her feline companion. "I mean, they aren't going to try and kill each other over there without us, right?"

"Naaah, they'll be fine," Happy said airily. "They work fine together when they're trying to get something done…usually."

"Usually?"

"Well, there was this one time they went out together to try and steal some fancy backup engine. They didn't come back for a loooooong time and the guild started freaking out, so we ran to check on 'em and see if they needed help. And you know what we found?"

"I can hazard a guess…"

"The two of them were beating the stuffing out of each other, right in the middle of the enemy base. And not just each other—they'd knocked the guts outta all the guards and officials on the base as well as wrecked half the place. They also trashed the backup engine they were trying to steal. Gramps wasn't exactly happy, y'know?"

"Who's this Gramps you and the boys keep mentioning?" Lucy asked.

"Oh, he's the head of the Fairy Tail thieves guild," Happy said. "Makarov Dreyar."

The name struck a chord in her memory. "Dreyar? Wasn't that Laxus's last name?"

Happy nodded. "Yup. Makarov is Laxus's grandfather."

"Ohhh…I get it." The helm beeped as they were signaled by the _Adjudicator._ She answered it. "How does it look, Natsu?"

"Eeeeh," he said skeptically. "I was right before—it's really not the best ship. It's got a Halberd Beam though—I can't _wait_ to start carving chunks out of enemy ships' hulls!"

"What's the main problem?" Happy said.

Gray responded this time. "This ship is a Zoltan ship, meaning it was designed to be used by Zoltans. Because of this its engine power is absolutely pathetic, as they rely on the Zoltan's innate energy to power half the systems. Using this ship will give us greater mobility and stronger weaponry and shields, but it'll require a lot of shutting down some systems to power others."

"It's also really inconveniently designed," Natsu added. "The main bridge is like a billion miles away from the rest of the ship's main systems, which means that Gray'll have a hard time getting back and forth."

"So… do we still want it?" Lucy asked nervously. "'Cause this isn't exactly inspiring confidence."

"I'd say yes," Gray said, "but just not for very long. It's faster than the _Torus_ so we'll make more headway, but this is not a ship we want to stay in long-term."

"Alright!" Natsu exclaimed loudly. "If that's settled, then let's start moving our stuff over!"

"Ouch, don't shove me you flaming moron!"

"Well then don't stand in my way, droopy eyes!"

"You—"

Lucy closed the channel with a tight smile and twitching eye. She turned to Happy. "Let's separate them before one of them breaks an arm, shall we?"

"More like you break it for them," Happy muttered under his breath.

" _What was that, cat?_ "

OOOOO

It took them a little under an hour to transfer all of their belongings to the other ship. They barely had anything to begin with—the things that took the longest were uninstalling a couple systems, transferring what little data they had accumulated, and removing the cloaking device. Lucy walked in on Natsu apologizing profusely to the stolen piece of machinery for not using it lately, and that he would totally make up for it later. Then he saw Lucy watching, turned beet red, and hurriedly left the room, muttering something about needing to do some last-minute checkups. Finally all was done, and they beamed over to their new ship.

When Lucy materialized in its transporter room, she had to blink very hard. The whole room and, she suspected, the ship as well, was glowing a painful, bright yellow that she had to squint her eyes to see through. She persuaded Gray, who was seemingly unaffected by the brightness to lower the lighting in the ship, and once she could see she proceeded to inspect the rest of the ship. It was bigger than the _Torus,_ with fifteen rooms total rather than ten, and each room was slightly more spacious.

Natsu hadn't been kidding about the inconvenient design of the ship—it took Lucy nearly three whole minute running to get from the bridge to the engine room. Also, engineering, weapons controls, and shield controls were all right next to each other, meaning if the ship was damaged in that area, they could potentially lose all three of their major systems in one well-aimed blow. It was not, Lucy concluded in agreement with Gray, a ship they wanted to stay in long term.

At last, the four of them stood aboard the bridge of the _Adjudicator_ and watched as the Zoltan fleet captured their old ship in a tractor beam and started to take it away with them.

"She really wasn't a bad ship," Natsu commented as it started to fade away with the Zoltans. "I mean, it was a crappy fifth-rate Engi transfer ship, but still…that ship got us off the floating scrap heap that I had to fly around in before."

Gray shook his head. "I still don't get how you could have had a ship so bad that the Engi tin can seem good in comparison."

Natsu snorted. "Gray, that thing was such a piece of junk that when we were boarded by an Engi I couldn't even swing my arm with all my strength 'cause I was afraid I might rupture the hull."

"We were happy to see it go," Lucy inserted bluntly. "But I think because of that I'll always have a soft spot for Engi ships now," she added with a fond glance at the disappearing fleet.

"Who knows," Happy said, "maybe one day we'll get another one."

"Maybe," she said. Happy was right. With their luck, who really knew?

And with that, together the four of them silently said their goodbyes to the _Torus_ and prepared to complete their voyage through the Zoltan homeworlds and head to the Klom system to greet whatever would come at them next.

* * *

 **You all know what I'm here for: R! E! V! I! E! W! S!**

 **You guys were great with this chapter-I got over twenty! Honestly, I'm thrilled when I get half of that, but I swear you guys are what make me write. I read each and every one of them at least five times and I grin like an idiot all the while.**

 **And as always, thank you so much for reading!**


	13. Bad Puns and Awkward Flirting

**A/N: I'm really sorry...I tried really hard to get this out by the new year, but as you can see, that didn't happen. A lot of other stuff did though, and those things totally impeded my ability to write in a timely fashion. But it's a little early...kinda sorta. If you count five days before your absolute deadline being early. Well, I hope the chapter itself makes up for the wait, anyway.**

 **Reminder: this is unbeta'd and I'm exhausted and still have a ton of homework to do, but I really wanted to get this out so it's probably got some typos here and there. Apologies.**

 **Now go and have fun!**

* * *

The _Adjudicator_ shook violently with the harsh impact of the debris.

"Whoops!" Natsu said cheerfully. "Must have missed seeing that one—sorry guys."

" _Sorry_ won't help our battered corpses!" Lucy shrieked, clutching the edge of her seat desperately.

"Aw, live a little Lucy," Happy admonished her.

"That's easy for you to say," she snapped. "You don't have to hold on to your seat for dear life!" And indeed, the little cat did not, for he had sprouted his wings and was floating in the center of the cabin, unaffected and supremely unconcerned by the intense convulsions of the ship.

"I can't help being a superior species," Happy replied cheekily.

"Yeah, you tell her Happy!" Natsu yelled as his fingers flew across the console and the ship lurched to the side. "Exceeds are awesome. They'll totally conquer the universe some day."

"You keep out of this," Lucy bellowed. "It's your fault we're in this mess in the first place! So much for being the best navigator in the galaxy!"

"Pilot, not navigator," Natsu protested. "I'm only good at dodging stuff when it's right in front of me."

"So we've noticed," Happy snipped.

After Lucy and the others has acquired the _Adjudicator_ and left the Zoltan homeworlds, they had shot off towards the Klom system, going noticeably faster than they had in the _Torus._

"Are you sure we should be going this fast?" Lucy had asked anxiously. "I mean, this is a new ship, and it's got a whole new navigational system and all…"

"Nah, don't worry 'bout it," Natsu had replied cheerfully. "My old ship, the one I had before I got caught by the Federation, was also a Zoltan cruiser. It was a hell of a lot nicer than this one, but I know the basics. We'll be fine."

Ten minutes later, he had steered their brand-new ship straight into the center of an asteroid field.

"Think of it this way," Natsu said now as he made the _Adjudicator_ perform a complex loop around a rock nearly half her size. "We're getting a chance to test out our new systems."

"You could have just run a diagnostic," Happy said wryly.

"Aw, where's the fun in that?"

"The _fun,_ " Lucy said through gritted teeth as the ship lurched again, "would be _survival._ "

"Pssh, survival is overrated." A light started flashing in the corner of his console. "Uh-oh."

Lucy did not like the sound of his tone. "What do you mean, 'uh-oh?'" she said sharply. "That's really not something we want to hear right now."

He ignored her. "Happy, can you check that out for me? I have a feeling things are gonna get a little hectic from here on out."

A feeling of dismay swept over her at those words as she watched Happy swoop over to his console. She had seen that look on Natsu's face enough times to know what Happy would see even before he exclaimed, "There's a ship out there, and they've locked their weapons on us!"

"Seriously?" Natsu grumbled. "I had to pick the one asteroid field with a ship inside it?" The ship shook again as it narrowly avoided a flying asteroid. "Lucy, can you get Gray on the comm?"

"On it." She haltingly made her way towards her console and contacted Gray. "Go," she told Natsu.

"Yo Gray," Natsu said, not taking his eyes off his console as he focused intently on the situation before them. He yanked the ship to the side, ducking under another asteroid while trying to put some distance between them and the pursuing ship. "You gotten comfy over there?"

"Oh yeah, sure," came the irritated engineer's sarcastic reply. "I've magically figured out every nuance of a completely foreign engineering system in the _hour_ I've been on the ship. And the fact that my brilliant pilot decided that for a _test drive_ he'd fly into an _asteroid field_ really helped. So yeah, thanks for asking!"

"Good," said Natsu distractedly. "So that means you can get all the systems ready for battle with an unknown ship in the middle of said asteroid field?"

Lucy and Happy exchanged chagrined glances as they waited for the storm to break.

"Are. You. _KIDDING ME?_ " Gray exploded. " _Please_ tell me this is your warped idea of a joke!"

"For your information, my jokes are way better than this. So nope, deadly serious."

"I—it—you—" For a moment it sounded as if Gray had gone apoplectic with rage, but then he seemed to calm himself down somewhat.

"Fine," he growled. "I'll divert power form secondary systems and life support in a couple rooms to the weapons, shields, and engines. But don't do anything crazy—the ship's taxed enough as it is."

"No promises, frost queen."

"Shit man, I don't wanna die out here, and especially not together with you. And don't _DO_ that!" Gray yelled as the ship lurched to the side again.

"Well sorry for trying to save your frozen ass, droopy eyes."

"Screw you, pyro! You—"

"Enough!" Lucy cried. "We have way more important things to be focusing on than your egos. The enemy ship is in range."

"Happy, tactical analysis," Natsu ordered. The ship shuddered once more as another asteroid narrowly missed them.

"Small scout-class vessel, lower middle-class shields, I'd say two levels, probably 2-B. They've got one ion beam and a chain blaster. Oh, and they're Rockmen."

"Well I guess that'd make—sense—seeing as we're—in the middle of—a flipping asteroid field," Natsu grunted as he sharply maneuvered the ship around a series of small rocks.

"Rockmen?" Lucy echoed. "You mean from Vrachos IV?"

She thought back to her inter-galactic species lessons back at the FA. The natives of Vrachos IV had been nicknamed "Rockmen" by their surrounding species because of their unique skin which according to scientific experiments was as hard and rugged as solid rock, not to mention bearing a strong resemblance to a pile of misshapen boulders with glowing eyes. Infamously well-conditioned and physically strong with huge resilience and immunity to flames, the Rockmen were highly sought out for crewmembers by various species.

"Yeah, that's them," Happy confirmed. "Dunno what they're doing here—maybe mining or something—but whatever it is, they don't seem to like us being here with them. Natsu watch out, they're about to fire."

His remark seemed to flick on a switch in Lucy's head, and the information slowly came back to her. "Well, as a naturally warlike species with few intergalactic and diplomatic ties, the rock people have gathered quite the reputation as fearsome pirates."

"Nice to know that they're living up to type!" Natsu said through clenched teeth, and swerved the ship around the blasts from the other ship.

"Why aren't we firing back at them?" Lucy asked. "Didn't we get new weapons?"

"We need to damage their shields some before we can penetrate them," Happy said. "The Halberd Beam won't cut through more than one level."

"So… how are going to beat them then?"

"I know you're all pissy about being in an asteroid field Luce," Natsu said, "and I'll admit, it's not the ideal place to be in a fight, but you gotta realize—the advantages of an asteroid field apply to both ships."

Understanding dawned on her. "Meaning if we've got to be constantly swerving around to avoid being pulverized by a giant asteroid, then so do they."

Natsu nodded. "You got it. But remember: we've got two things they don't."

"Let me guess: one of them is you?"

He grinned happily. "Got it in one! And the second thing is…whoops, crap!" A small asteroid flew at them from the side too quickly for Natsu to avoid. Lucy grit her teeth in anticipation of the shuddering impact of the rock colliding with the ship's hull, but instead the asteroid bounced off a light green force field that shimmered into existence around the ship just as the asteroid came into range.

"Superior shields!" Natsu exclaimed. "Zoltan shields ROCK!" When no one responded to that statement, he half-glanced in Lucy's direction. "Come on, guys! The shields rock—asteroid field? Flying rocks? Fighting Rockmen? …Anyone?"

"Instead of making stupid puns, could you instead focus on _PILOTING THE SHIP!?_ " Lucy screamed. " _DODGE!_ "

He snapped back to the screen. "Wha— _woah!_ " he yelled as an enormous asteroid came barreling in their direction. At the same time, the Rockman ship came at them and fired a barrage of laser beams at the _Adjudicator._ Natsu tried to dodge, but there were too many projectiles coming at them too fast and they crashed into the shields, throwing the ship's occupants across the room. The shields held up against the onslaught, but the ship shook so badly that several systems shorted out, sending sparks flying everywhere and setting fire to seats and consoles. The ship's alarms started ringing loudly, emergency lights flashing.

"Shit!" Natsu swore. "Shit, shit, shit!" He picked himself up from the floor where he'd been tossed by the impact and ran over to his flaming seat. Opening his mouth widely, he inhaled sharply and sucked the fire into his mouth in a steady stream. He didn't stop to savor it, however—instead he ran forward to his now smoking slightly station and immediately retook control of the ship.

"Happy, damage report!" he yelled over the blaring of the alarms.

The Exceed had been knocked straight across the cabin in to the wall and had fallen to the floor. Upon hearing his friend's command, however, he shook his head and flew unsteadily back to his station.

"Zoltan shields are at twenty percent," he said quickly, staring at the readings he'd pulled up on his console. "They'll last another hit, maybe two, before they cut out. The ship hasn't taken any direct hull damage, but several systems have shorted out from the impact and there's a fire in the cargo bay, but the bay's empty right now so we can just let the ship's fire-suppressant system take care of it."

"Fire-suppressant system's offline," Lucy said woozily. She had hit her head when the ship had been hit and as a result was rather dizzy. "Gray had to reroute that system to power the shields."

"Shit," Natsu swore again, and raked a hand through his hair. "That'll spread, and I don't have enough time to go and eat it."

A light blinked on Lucy's console and she pressed a button. Gray's panicked voice filled the cabin.

"What the hell's going on up there? I've got circuit boards sparking and conduits fusing left and right—I need someone down here to help me, now!"

"Lucy, go," Natsu ordered without turning around. "We'll take care of things here—just watch out for the cargo bay."

"You got it," she said, and ran out of the room. Because of the length of the hall, however, it took her several minutes to get to engineering. By the time she arrived, she found Gray running around in only his boxers with a fire extinguisher and a tool kit, trying to put out small fires that had sprung up sporadically throughout the room.

"About time!" he yelled as she doubled over, clutching a stitch in her side. "What took you so long?"

"S-sorry," she panted heavily. "The ship's freaking long."

"Whatever, here." He tossed her the tool kit. "Climb up those shafts over there and repair the fried circuits inside them. When you're done, go up that Jeffery's Tube," he jerked his thumb towards a sealed hatch near the ceiling, "and fix the fused conduit in there."

She nodded and started to move forwards, but thrust her hand out to catch her balance as the ship rocked once more.

"I really wish that'd stop," she muttered weakly.

"Tell me about it," Gray said. "You know how hard it is to try and calibrate engine output when you're flying across the room every other minute? Not to mention that I don't have the strongest stomach, so all this jerking around is making me wanna puke."

She climbed up the first shaft and started to work on it. "You get motion sickness? I never pegged you as the type."

"Only if the ship's doing crazy stuff like this. Normally I'm fine—I'm not Natsu, after all."

"Eh?" She stuck her head out of the shaft to stare at him in disbelief. "Natsu gets motion sickness?"

He laughed. "Worse than anyone I've ever met. He can't get on a single form of transportation for more than three seconds without turning green and hurling over the side of whatever he's on."

She finished the first shaft and moved on to the second. "But he's fine on a starship."

"For some reason, that's the only form of transportation he's okay with. In fact, he revels in it—it's like he was born to travel the stars." He put out the last little fire and set the extinguisher down. "How're those shafts coming?"

"Just finished the second one; it wasn't too badly messed up."

"Good. I'm gonna work on restarting some systems."

"Oh right," she said. "There's a fire in the cargo bay but you've taken the fire-suppressant system offline."

"Really? Crap. Fine, I'll just vent the oxygen in that area. It's just the cargo bay?"

"Yup." A wire sparked and she withdrew her hand with a sharp hiss, sucking on her finger. "Stupid thing. Okay, I finished this one. Just the Jeffery's Tube is left?"

Gray held on tightly to the console he was at as the ship shuddered and swayed. "For now, but who knows what'll happen in this clusterfuck?"

She backed out of the shaft and headed towards the Tube. "You know, you swear an awful lot."

He shrugged lightly. "Can't help it. My foster mom swore like a sailor, so I picked up on it. Juvia's helping me work on it, though."

"That's kind of sweet." She climbed the ladder up to the Tube and pressed a button on the panel. The hatch swished open. Heaving herself in, she crawled through the Tube about five feet in, found the fused conduit, and set to work.

A few minutes later, Gray noticed that it was taking Lucy a lot longer to come down from the Tube than it had from the maintenance shafts. "You okay up there, Lucy?" he called.

"Um, actually…" she said in a small voice. "I can't fix it."

"What's the matter?"

"There are five different pathways on the conduit from completely separate systems that are totally welded together. I don't really have the expertise to repair them."

"Hold on a sec, I'll help you out," Gray said. He flipped a few switches by the controls and made sure that the engines were in sync and running properly. Then he climbed up the ladder into the Tube and took a look at the conduits, the hatch swishing closed behind him. As he examined it, Lucy pressed herself against the other side of the wall. The Tube was rather narrow, only about four feet wide and three feet tall, and not really suited to holding more than one person comfortably at a time.

"Here," Gray said, holding out his hand. "Pass me the sonic screwdriver, will you?" She complied, and he somewhat awkwardly twisted around to show her the screwdriver. "You see these settings? If you put them on this secondary switch, the frequency—"

The _Adjudicator_ shook violently and the two of them were slammed against the side of the Jeffery's Tube. There was a sizzling and snapping noise, and Lucy saw a series of sparks travel down the sides of the Tube. Finally the tremors stopped, and Lucy began to breathe again. Or at least, she tried to. But she was sandwiched snugly between the wall and Gray, who was cursing fluently under his breath.

"—flaming bastard that can't even steer a ship properly, SURE, let's fly straight into a fucking asteroid field with no preparation! I'm gonna rip his fucking spine out—"

He tried to heave himself from the wall, but the ship shook again and he fell back onto Lucy with a pained huff.

"Ouch!" she hissed as her hip was jammed against the wall.

"Sorry Lucy, I'm trying—" With a loud grunt, he managed to roll over and started to crawl back down the Tube. "—gotta make sure that everything's okay down there—" He reached out and jabbed the buttons on the control panel by the exit to open the hatch.

Nothing happened.

"Oh no," he muttered. "You have _got_ to be joking."

"What's wrong?" Lucy asked, wincing as she rubbed her back.

"The door's not opening," he said as he continued to punch fruitlessly at various buttons. "That last hit must've knocked out the door control system. The doors won't open or close until the system's fixed unless you've got something to pry 'em open with, which we don't." He gave up on pressing buttons and slumped onto the bottom of the Tube. "We're stuck here."

"Are you kidding me?"

"I hope you're not claustrophobic," he joked weakly, and it earned an equally weak chuckle in return.

"Not really, but I won't pretend that this is the most comfortable I've ever been."

"Tell me about it," he said, twisting around to face her. The only light in the Tube came from the gently glowing lights of the various conduits and circuits, illuminating their faces in an eerie green.

They both sat quietly with their knees up against their chests, staring awkwardly at each other. They may have gotten friendly with each other over the past month, but neither of them were prepared to be stuffed together in such close proximity for an indefinite amount of time. Especially with Gray only in his underpants.

"So…" Gray said.

"So…" Lucy repeated.

"Well, since we're stuck here, d'you wanna…" He trailed off.

"You wanna…?" she prompted him. She thought he looked rather red, but it was probably just the light.

"Um…" Things were getting very awkward.

"I mean, that could really be anything," she babbled, desperately trying to fill in the horribly stiff silence. "You could ask if I wanted to murder you, play cards, count the screws in the paneling—I mean, heavens, that could even be slightly suggestive."

Gray gave a slight cough. Squinting at him, Lucy realized that his complexion was not, as she had thought, as result of the light. He was actually red and turning redder by the second. Her eyebrows slowly started to rise as his face turned an even deeper shade of scarlet.

"Wait, you weren't actually _trying_ to be suggestive, were you?"

In the green lighting, his face now resembled a nauseous tomato. "I, uh…"

"Sir Gray Fullbuster, are you _flirting_ with me?"

"…maybe?"

Her eyebrows disappeared behind her bangs. "Aren't you _married?_ "

He groaned and buried his face in his hands.

"This was a disaster," he moaned. "I don't know why I thought this was a good idea."

"Neither do I," Lucy said, staring. "But I do know why my opinion of you is steadily plummeting."

"I deserve that."

"Yes. Yes you do. Care to explain _why_ it even occurred to you to try that? Juvia not good enough for you or something?"

"What?" His head shot up. "No, no, that's not it at all!"

"Then why? Why, in heaven's name would you try and flirt with me? Badly, I might add."

His face went back to his hands. "That was kinda the point."

"Sorry?"

He sighed. "Juvia is the best thing that's ever happened to me," he mumbled. "She's amazing all around, and she makes everything seem so effortless. She just waltzes in and makes everything happen in no time at all and she does it _perfectly_ and the whole time she'll be saying stuff that makes me want to melt into a fucking puddle and it's all just so _smooth._ But when _I_ try to be smooth like that I end up tripping over my words and dropping whatever I'm holding at the time and sounding like a complete idiot. So I thought that while I was away in space I'd be able to get some kind of practice, so I could go home back to her as the perfect husband and sweep her off her feet with the smoothest line ever." He said this all very quickly and quietly into his hands, ears and face burning all the while. He only looked up when Lucy started to laugh.

She couldn't help herself—he looked so silly and forlorn and speaking in such a sheepish way that she thought he was, quite frankly, adorable. The whole situation, of them being trapped in a five-foot Jeffery's Tube and him trying to flirt with her in only his boxers and then gushing about his wife was too much for her. Her laughter increased.

"I'm that pathetic, aren't I?" he said miserably.

 _No,_ she tried to say, shaking her head helplessly as she laughed. "No," she repeated, gasping. "It's just—you're—you're such a _boy!_ " she exclaimed finally, collapsing into peals of laughter once more.

"What's—what's that supposed to mean?" he blustered.

She giggled. "Gray, if you want to improve your relationship with someone, how about you practice on that person?"

He blinked. "Huh?"

"Gray, part of what makes a relationship work and what makes it strong is the effort put into it. Sure a surprise here and there is nice, but for the most part it's the payoff of hard work that lets the relationship thrive." She gave a small chuckle. "My mother used to say that there's no such thing as perfection in a relationship, and that's what makes it perfect."

"But I want to be better for her," he argued. "Juvia always puts her all into everything, especially when it comes to me. I want to do the same thing for her, if not more!"

"So do that _with_ her. Show her how much you care by doing what you can, right in front her face, so she can't miss it. Even if it's in little things, you make a difference to her and she'll love you even more for it."

His wide eyes looked hopeful. "You think so?"

She nodded. "Absolutely."

He rubbed his face wearily. "Ach, I'm no good at this husband thing. Why did I ever ask her to marry me?"

"I'm assuming it's because you love her," she said dryly.

"Yeah…" He sighed slightly dreamily. "I really, really do."

"So stop being an idiot and when you go home to your wife you sweep her off her feet literally instead of trying to be something you're not."

He raised an eyebrow. "Did you just imply that I'm not smooth?"

"Yes. Yes I did."

His shoulders sagged. "Thanks Lucy."

"Anytime."

Suddenly for the third time the ship shook once more, and once again Gray was thrown into Lucy and the two of them collided roughly with the side of the Tube.

"Okay, that's really starting to get on my nerves," growled the engineer as he tried to pick himself up.

"I'll say," Lucy said. "And holy cow Gray—why are you so cold?" This time when Gray had fallen onto her, her hands had been out and were pressed against his bare back, which to her shock felt like cool metal on a hot summer's day rather than warm skin.

"Cold?" he said, crawling away from her. "Oh right, I guess I am. Yeah, that's the Etherious bit in me there, sorry."

"You're an Etherious?" she said, surprised. "Like Natsu?"

"Well, half Etherious," Gray said. "My birth mother was human. I've got the Etherious power quirks, but physically I'm human. I don't have the psychotic strength or durability of a full-blooded Etherious."

She blinked. "Oh." For some reason, she had thought that Gray was human. Making the same mistake twice? Yowch—she was really off her game. "So…is Juvia an Etherious too?"

He nodded. "Yup. She's water based, so we live on a planet that's like ninety percent ocean or something like that."

"Water based… Oh, you mean like how Natsu eats fire?" He nodded again. "So what are your abilities?"

"I'm an ice eater," Gray said. "It's why I'm so cold all the time. I never get cold and I can eat any form of ice and convert it into energy. I can also manipulate and reshape it, too—I just never figured out how I can still do all that weird stuff with a human physique."

"That's so cool…" Lucy sighed wistfully. "Humans don't have anything as fantastic as that. We're just kind of…there."

"And yet you've gotten just as far as the rest of us. I think that's far more impressive than any of the party tricks other races have got to offer."

"Really?" She went slightly pink. "That's awfully nice of you."

"Ah, well, technically I'm half-complimenting myself as well, so slightly less nice."

She laughed. "Still works for me." A thought occurred to her, and she frowned. "Is it just me, or has the ship stopped shaking?"

He glanced upwards. "Yeah, you're right. It's running normally again for the first time in a while. Maybe we got out?"

Lucy bit her lip. "Then why haven't they come and gotten us out yet?"

Gray snorted. "They might not have realized that something's wrong. If you hadn't noticed, Natsu and Happy aren't the brightest bulbs in the box, y'know what I mean?"

"Oh yeah," she said, pursing her lips. "Trust me. I know." She gave him a shrewd glance. "Not that you're much better."

He grimaced.

They sat silently for another moment or two before Lucy spoke up again. "In the mean time, as long as we're waiting here for them to notice us, I've got another question for you."

"What's up?"

"You know that whole test scenario with the Zoltans that ended up with us getting this ship?" He nodded. "Well, I was thinking—why did they think we were from the Empire?"

Gray frowned. "What do you mean?"

"Well, we were random travelers just going through the system; we could have been anyone. And what's more, we were in an Engi ship, and Engi are allied with the Federation, not the Empire. So why did they assume we were from Alvarez?"

He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Well, I can't say for sure, but I think it might have been because of Natsu. And me," he added.

"Huh? Why?"

"Remember that green light that the outpost shone at us?"

"Yeah, it was really bright. Hurt my eyes."

"That was a bio-scan. It was probably meant for lethal micro-organisms and stuff but it wouldn't have scanned over our genetic signatures as well. If they picked up two Etherious patterns than it's only natural that they assumed we were from the Empire, and passed the information on to other ships in the sector."

"Why's that?" Lucy asked curiously. "Why assume we're from the Empire? Even if you're a specific species, you could have originated from any planet colonized by your kind, couldn't you?"

"That's…really unlikely," he said hesitantly. "Etherious only come from one planet: Alvarez. We've spread out a little to some other planets, like where Juvia and I live, but never far from our home planet. It's like a homing instinct type thing, kind of like a beehive or a collective. We're never far from home—not permanently, anyway. We can leave for years and travel around, but we always go home eventually. We can't help it."

"So…you're not born anywhere else? Ever?"

He looked away. "We can be, but it's incredibly rare, and it never ends well."

She gazed at him thoughtfully. "So that means…Natsu will have to go home eventually, won't he?"

He glanced back at her in surprise. "Yeah. But don't worry; he'll definitely get you home first. He might not go back to Alvarez for years. He doesn't really like home."

"Yeah, what's up with that?" she said inquisitively. "He seems to get very prickly every time his brother is mentioned."

"Oh." Gray shifted uncomfortably. "He, uh…he doesn't really get along with his brother. Family drama, y'know?"

She snorted. "Oh boy, you've got _no_ idea. My family—" Lucy broke off abruptly, staring at him. "Gray Fullbuster, _what do you think you are doing?_ "

Gray froze. "Huh?" He glanced down and saw that he had started to slip off his boxers. "Whoops, sorry Lucy, it's just when I get uncomfortable—" he started to say, but Lucy cut him off with a piercing scream.

" _DO NOT STRIP IN FRONT OF ME!_ "

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I—" He yelped as Lucy's foot swing up towards his head and threw himself back. Her foot missed and smashed into the top of the Tube. She cried out in pain clutched at her foot.

"Crap, Lucy, are you okay?" Gray reached out to her but she scooched away to the far back of the Tube with her eyes squeezed shut.

" _Do not come near me until you put your underpants back on!_ "

"But I didn't—" He looked down again and saw his boxers by his ankles. "—aw, _fuck—_ "

" _Put them back on! Put them back on NOW!_ Oh my God, you're the most disgusting, perverted, c _reeper_ of a man I've ever met! Oh my _God—_ "

"Alright, alright, they're going back on!" Gray yelled, yanking them up.

"Can they go on _faster,_ please?"

"I'm trying, but it's really cramped in here and it's hard to—"

"Gray, I swear to all that is holy if you don't put them back on this instant I will cut off your balls and send them to Juvia in a gift-wrapped package."

"Hey, that's uncalled for," he protested.

"YOU STRIPPING TWO FEET AWAY FROM ME IN A CONFINED SPACE IS UNCALLED FOR!"

"I can't help it!"

" _PUT THEM BACK ON ALREADY!_ "

"Okay, okay—"

"Lucy?"

They both froze, Lucy cowering in the corner with her hands over her eyes and Gray desperately trying to pull his boxers back on.

"Lucy?" the voice called again. It was Happy. "Where are you?"

"I'm in here!" she shrieked. "I'm up here, I'm stuck in the Jeffery's Tube with a perverted stripper who's taken off his underwear—"

"It's back on, geez!"

"—and the door's stuck and I can't get out and he's naked and _HELP!_ "

"Gray!" Happy exclaimed, scandalized. "With Lucy? How could you betray me? I thought we had a plan!"

"I didn't—I'm not—you—" Gray spluttered. "Just get us out of here, will you?"

"It's the door control system, right?" Happy said. "That's gonna take me a while to fix; the system's pretty busted."

"How long are we talking?" Lucy said through gritted teeth.

"Maybe…ten, fifteen minutes?"

"Ugh." Gray slumped against the side. "That long?"

"I just want to get out of here," moaned Lucy.

" _You_ want to get out? My eardrums are practically bleeding from all your shrieking."

"And my eyes are burning in their sockets from your exhibitionism," she snapped. "At this rate I really am going to need bleach for them, not to mention my brain. Oh, my poor innocence!" she wailed, covering her eyes with her hands again.

"Oh c'mon, it wasn't that bad. You barely saw anything."

"I saw enough!"

"Uh, I'm just gonna go work on the doors now…" Happy said.

"Wait, Happy, what happened?" Lucy said. "Are we out of danger?"

"We're okay now. You can ask Natsu what happened when you get out," the Exceed called, and then there was silence.

"Well, now what?" Lucy sighed.

Gray scratched the back of his neck. "Well, we could always, um…"

"…yes?"

He coughed. "Do you wanna, uh…"

She narrowed her eyes at him. "You haven't forgotten how this whole mess started, have you?"

"Um…"

She spread her hands out. "Hello?"

He held out his index fingers hopefully. Lucy stared at him.

"…play chopsticks?"

OOOOO

Eight games and fifteen minutes later, Lucy and Gray were finally freed from the Jeffery's Tube. The two of them could not get out fast enough, and upon being released Lucy promptly put a good twenty feet between herself and Gray, stating that he if ever stripped within ten feet of her again she would cheerfully castrate him. Seeing the dangerous glint in her eye, Gray nodded emphatically and wiped his brow in relief when she turned to leave.

Lucy made her way back to the bridge while Gray stayed behind in engineering to assess the damages. She was intensely happy to have the chance to stretch her legs and actually welcomed the somewhat lengthy walk back. When she walked into the room, she found a sweaty Natsu draped over his seat like a wet towel and fanning himself.

"Oh, hey Luce," he murmured as she came in. "That was one hell of a ride, huh?"

"You don't say," she responded tartly, taking the seat next to him. "You look like you've been through the wringer. What happened after I left?"

"Our shields got smashed—sorry about the bumpy ride—and we started this kind of merry-go-round chase around this big-ass rock like five times our size until the other ship lost control and smashed right into the thing. It took out their shields so then we could just use our Halberd Beam and start carving chunks outta 'em."

Lucy watched him impassively. "Did you kill them?"

He shook his head. "Nah. They were in pretty pathetic shape when they surrendered, so I let 'em go. Not sure that was a mercy though—dunno if they had enough of their hull intact to survive getting out of the field." He stretched languidly. "Why, did you want me to kill 'em?"

"No," she said sharply, but added nothing else.

Natsu raised an eyebrow. "Hey, you're not totally happy with what's goin' on here. Wanna clue me in?"

She shook her head. "It's nothing."

He was still suspicious, but didn't press the subject. Instead, he switched topics. "The ship got a little banged up during all the craziness, so I was thinking that we should head for another outpost to fix it up. There's one coming up in like five minutes, so it shouldn't take too long."

"Alright, that sounds pretty good," she agreed. "And who knows, maybe they'll even have some clothes for us. I'm getting pretty sick of looking at the same torn uniform every day, and the creeper in engineering still needs shoes."

"'Creeper?'" Natsu echoed, frowning. "What'd he do now?"

"Oh nothing, only stripped down to his birthday suit two feet away from me in a cramped Jeffery's Tube," she muttered mulishly.

"He did WHAT?" Natsu roared, springing to his feet.

Lucy ogled him. "He, uh…"

"I'll kill him!" the thief yelled. "I'll the droopy-eyed bastard!" Natsu ran forward and grabbed the sides of her head, bringing her very close to his face. "Did anything happen? Did he try to be slick and do something stupid? Do you need therapy?"

Heat flooded her face at his proximity and her heart skipped a beat. What the hell was wrong with him? She had thought he would see the situation as a joke, but apparently not. Swallowing hard, she took a finger and pressed it against his forehead, pushing him away.

"Calm down, Natsu," she said soothingly, yet still rather alarmed. "He was uncomfortable and just being his usual perverted self. He didn't do anything."

He backed away several steps, but didn't take his eyes off of her. "You sure?"

If this were an anime, she would have sweat-dropped. "Yeah, I'm sure. Yeesh Natsu, I thought you would find it funny and laugh, not go ballistic on me."

He tilted his head and sighed. "Yeah alright, sorry. Guess I kinda went overboard there. But you don't know how many people Gray's traumatized over the years."

She gave a tight smile. "I can guess."

Natsu rubbed his hands together awkwardly. He looked embarrassed and slightly unsure of himself. "I'm, uh, gonna go to my room and clean up," he muttered. "Can you just make sure we get there in one piece?"

She nodded, and he mumbled, "Thanks," and hurried out of the room.

Lucy placed her hand over her rapidly beating heart. The look in his eyes…could that have been _jealousy?_ No, that wasn't it, it couldn't be. That would imply there was something to be jealous of. Maybe possessiveness? That would make more sense—Natsu was the fiercely possessive type, and she supposed that he had kind of claimed her, in a way. Not in a creepy way though—just to protect. He had sworn to get her home, after all. That was all there was to it.

So why did she feel like she was lying to herself?

Lucy was jerked out of her thoughts by the sound of Natsu's enraged voice over the comm. "GRAY! Why the hell is there no oxygen in my room?"

"Whoops, sorry 'bout that pyro," came the engineer's response. "I had to divert life support from some of the rooms to power the systems and there was a giant fire in the cargo bay next to your room, so the air in that section had to go."

"' _Sorry?_ '" Natsu squawked indignantly. "Sorry won't help my cold, dead body! I almost died there!"

"And _what_ a shame that would have been…"

"Screw you, droopy eyes! I'll—"

But Gray never found out what Natsu would have done for Lucy, together with a twitching eyelid and the beginnings of a headache, had merrily pressed down on the mute button on her console at communications, cutting off both their ends.

"And now, I shall relax," she announced to herself. Lifting her legs up onto the chair and folding them in the criss-cross position, she set her shoulders back, placed her palms on her knees, and began to take deep, even breaths. It had been a long time since she had had to meditate; it was a technique that she'd often had to employ in the stress of attending the FA, but not since. After the insanity of the day that hadn't even finished, however, she felt that now was an appropriate time to renew old practices.

Seven minutes later she had calmed down considerably—or at least, her blood pressure was down to semi-normal levels. Lucy opened her eyes in a sort of peaceful daze and saw that they were range of the space station. Quickly looking up the station's name, she opened the hailing frequencies.

"Station _Eurus_ , this is the _Adjudicator_. Requesting permission to dock."

There was no response. Lucy frowned and tried again.

"Station _Eurus_ , this is the _Adjudicator_ , do you read?"

Nothing.

Lucy wrinkled her nose and started to run a diagnostic on the communications system. Maybe something had gone smashed during the scuffle in the asteroid field? The results popped up on her console with a small ding. _No malfunctions detected._

Biting her lip, she tried one more time. "Station _Eurus_ , this is the _Adjudicator_ , please respond."

Nothing but static.

Lucy let out a great sigh and ran her fingers through her hair. Why couldn't anything be simple anymore? With a grimace she turned the intercom back on.

"Hey Natsu, what are you doing right now?"

"I'm sitting outside my room, waiting to be able to breathe in it again," he responded grumpily.

"So…you'd be able to back here and deal with a potential problem, then?"

"Potential problem? Aaargh, I don't wanna deal with any more problems! I've had enough for one day."

"Please?" she begged hopefully.

"Gah, fine, fine, I'm comin'. Be right there." He cut out.

A few minutes later, he stomped onto the bridge peevishly.

"Still hung up about your room?" Lucy guessed accurately.

"I wanna lie down," Natsu whined. "That fight was hectic and I'm _tired._ "

"You can use my room if you'd like," Lucy offered. "At least until your room's back to normal. Assuming, of course, that there's air in my room as well."

He brightened considerably. "Really? Thanks Luce!" He grinned at her. "So what's up?"

"I'm having trouble getting in contact with the station," Lucy said, gesturing at her console. "Something's wrong with communications, only I don't think it's on our end. I've run several diagnostics and nothing's come up."

Natsu tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Huh. Weird." He lowered his arms and leaned down next to her, staring at the screen. "Are we in scanning range?"

"Short-range sensors just picked it up."

"Put it onscreen," he ordered.

She complied, and the station flickered onto the main viewer. Lucy looked up and gasped.

The station was completely wrecked; great chunks had been torn out of its sides and the hull was peppered with holes, as if someone had fired a plasma cannon at it multiple times. Some parts had been torn off completely and were drifting lifelessly alongside it, sparking with stray wiring.

Lucy felt a sick swoop in her stomach at the sight. There had been _people_ aboard that station—over a hundred people manning it, not to mention whatever travelers had been staying there at the time. Judging from the amount of damage, it didn't appear that anyone could have survived such devastation.

"What—what _happened?_ " she gasped, her hand flying to her mouth.

Natsu had narrowed his eyes and was glaring heavily at the horrific scene before them. "Pirates," he said flatly. "Either that or some kind of enemy."

"What enemy?" Lucy said slightly hysterically. "That was a neutral station, meant only for refueling—it was just a pit-stop. Who would be an enemy of something as inconspicuous as that?"

"You never know, out here. People don't always make sense, and especially in deep space." Lucy's movement caught his eye, and he looked down at her, away from the screen. "What're you doing?"

"Scanning for life-forms," she said frantically. "Someone must still be alive over there."

His mouth twisted. "Don't get your hopes up. Not with that kind of damage."

"Yes, but still, I have to try." Her fingers flew across the keys on the panels as she searched. Results began to pop up on her console, all reading the same result: _No life-forms found._ Frustrated, she slammed her palms down onto the console. "Come on, give me SOMETHING!"

Still nothing. Lucy bowed her head over her console. Aside from when her mother had died, she had never felt more useless in her life. A warm hand settled on her shoulder, and she automatically leaned into its soothing touch.

"There's nothing we could have done," said Natsu quietly. "We didn't even get a distress signal."

"I know," she said through gritted teeth. "But it's still so _maddening,_ to be here and not being able to do a single damn thing!"

"Yeah, that's sometimes how things go. It's not—" He broke off as her console beeped, and she snapped right to attention.

"I've got one!" she cried. "It's just one, and it's really faint, but I've definitely got a life-sign over there!" She looked at him with shining eyes. "We've got to go over there."

He made a face. "That's not really a good id—"

"Whoever did this is long gone!" Lucy exclaimed. "This must have happened hours ago, and there's still one person clinging to life. There's no way in hell I'm going to leave them!"

"Fine," Natsu huffed. "But I'm going with you. It looks like there are still pockets of oxygen in the station or else that guy wouldn't be alive, so all you'll need is your medkit. I'll let Happy and Gray know what's going on while you go get it."

She nodded. "Thank you, Natsu," she told him, and ran out of the room. She practically flew down the hallway to the medbay and grabbed her medkit, which fortunately was still lying out in the open due to the ship only being a recent acquisition. Not pausing to catch her breath, she raced over to the transporter room where Natsu was waiting for her.

"You ready?" he asked, and she nodded. He set the timer and they both hopped onto the transporter pads. Seconds later they vanished, only to rematerialize in the middle of the station.

It was dark, with the only source of light coming from the dim glow of several computers and the occasional sparks of damaged wiring. Lucy whipped out her medical tricorder, scanning for the life-sign she had detected on the ship. "Over there!" she said, pointing to a pile of fallen beams in the corner.

Gingerly stepping over the piles of debris scattered about on the floor, Natsu made his way over to the corner and began to shift the beams. "Found him!" he called. Lucy rushed over to where they were.

A man lay pinned beneath several beams. Lucy bent down to examine him and inhaled sharply—part of a beam had splintered off and had pierced him right through the stomach. Judging by the angle of the entry wound, the beam would have gone right through his intestines. Her fingers shook. She had only taken basic first-aid at the FA—she didn't have the faintest clue how to handle something like this. She was also pretty sure that she had read somewhere that stomach wounds were almost always fatal. Her mind was blank with panic, but then, upon hearing their voices, the man stirred and his eyelids fluttered open.

"Don't move—" Lucy started to say, but the man gripped her sleeve tightly and pulled her close.

"Hey!" Natsu protested, but Lucy waved him off.

"Please," the man rasped. "You have to—have to help—"

"We will, but please, hold still—"

He shook his head adamantly. "Not me. The slaves."

She frowned. "Slaves?"

"Please—you must help them—"

"What slaves?"

"Coordinates," he gasped, sweating heavily. "In…databanks…can be retrieved—please—"

"Wait—wait, please, who attacked you?" Lucy implored him.

"Save them—please—"

"Save who? Where?!"

The man's last agonized breath left him in a ragged sigh.

"The slaves…of the Tower of Heaven."

* * *

 **And that's a wrap, folks!**

 **Now, I just want to thank all of you fantastic readers for the amount of reviews last chapter. Over 30! I almost passed out. Please please please keep that kind of feedback up, it really inspired me! It's gotten to the point where I stopped drawing in class and now I just write this instead. ;P**

 **So lemme know what y'alls thought of this chapter. I love you all, and I'll see you next time!**


	14. The Tower of Heaven

**A/N: *laughs insanely* I did it. I DID IT. I wrote this whole _freaking chapter_ in two days. With school. I haven't slept and am on the brink of insanity, but I did it. And now, you'd better go READ MY DAMN CHAPTER. And ENJOY IT. Or not. That's up to you. I certainly hope you do though, especially after the work I put into it. **

* * *

Lucy stared at the man's lifeless form in numb disbelief. One second he was alive and talking and the next…nothing. On an intellectual level she had known that there was no way the man would have survived such a grievous wound, but it was another thing entirely to watch the life drain out of a person right before her eyes. She had never seen someone die in front of her before, not even when her mother died.

Natsu maneuvered around the beams and, reaching out towards the dead man, gently closed his wide, staring eyes. Then he firmly took Lucy by the arm and brought her to her feet, leading her away from the body. She stumbled over the fallen debris as she followed him, still in shock.

"He…he just died," she mumbled. "He was there and talking and then he just wasn't and I couldn't do a thing about it. I—"

"Lucy." Natsu halted abruptly and turned around to face her. "Look at me." She blinked a couple times, but didn't meet his gaze. " _Look at me, Lucy._ " At the hardness of his command, she finally managed to focus on him.

"Listen to me," he said slowly, gripping both her arms tightly and looking her squarely in the eye. "People are born, they live, and they die. That's just the way things work. It's not pretty, it's not nice, and it's almost never fair, but that's just the way things are. There's no point in dwelling on it."

Eyes widening, she ripped her arms free of his grasp. "How can you say that?" she demanded hotly. "You just want me to _forget_ about the man who just died in front of me?"

He shrugged. "Basically. There's nothing we can do about it. What would be the point?"

"The _point,_ " she snapped furiously, "is that he was a person. A person with a life, with a family and friends and people he loved and people who loved him. And he just died, and we're the only people around to mourn him! So _excuse_ me for wanting to feel something at the death of another person!"

He stared at her. "Why do you even care? You didn't even know him. Yeah, it's sad, but it's not like we're the only ones who'll ever know he's dead. His family or whatever will find out, they'll be upset for a while, and then they'll get over it."

She gaped at him in speechless rage. "You—you—' _get over it?!_ ' Did you 'get over it' when your father died? Would you 'get over it' if your best friend were to die suddenly?" Her face had taken on a crimson hue, and she was breathing heavily. "When people die Natsu, they don't go away. You don't just 'get over it.' They stay with you forever, and that's where they're supposed to be! They live on in our hearts; if we don't remember them, then they're really dead, and it's as if we've killed them ourselves."

Natsu glared at her angrily, his brow furrowed. "That's a really nice sentiment to have when you're sitting safe in your pretty little house on your perfect, peaceful planet, but out here you can't afford to be that—"

"Don't you dare," she cut him off, livid. "Don't you dare say that it's because we're on our own in the galaxy, and that it's 'kill or be killed' out here. Don't. You. Dare. I meant what I said on our first day together when I destroyed that ship: I will not throw away my basic morality. I will not harden my heart and become an unfeeling monster, even if you don't seem to give a damn!"

"Is that what you think?" Natsu said through gritted teeth. "You think that because I'm not gonna sit and cry for an hour over a dead guy I never knew, I'm an 'unfeeling monster?'"

"Well, what else am I supposed to think?" she exclaimed. "You don't seem to have any regard for life aside for your own! Yeah, sure, you care to extent about Happy and Gray, but don't you realize—"

"Shut up!" he yelled, and she was so taken aback that had raised his voice at her the she did so. "Just shut up, okay?! What do you even know?" His onyx eyes were narrowed and his fists were clenched. Lucy had never seen him this upset before. "You're just a snobby rich girl who got lucky and got to fly around in a big fancy spaceship—"

"What does my upbringing have to do with this?" she cried, finding her voice.

"It means you're soft!" he bellowed. "It means that you think you can afford to open yourself up and give out little pieces of your heart to every single sorry soul out here that gets bitten in the ass by reality! Well I've got news for you Lucy—you can't. If you try and do that, if you try to _care_ about anyone who isn't yourself or the people closest to you, then you'll have your heart broken so many times there won't even be any pieces to pick up."

She stared at him, aghast. "What made you so hardened against the universe?"

"Reality did," he answered, breathing harshly. "Reality did as I watched my older brother give out more and more of his heart to other people and how much he hurt and how much it _killed_ him inside as every single one of them dropped like mayflies. So for over fifteen years I didn't make any friends, I didn't talk to anyone aside from my brother and my attendants, I didn't give my heart away— _and I didn't hurt._

"Well, eventually I realized how stupid that was; I mean, everyone has to love someone in their life—it's part of being alive. But I only started caring about a few people here and there, mostly at the guild. I didn't go around crying over every sap that lost his job or was in the wrong place at the wrong time or did something stupid and got themselves blown up. I didn't and don't because there is absolutely nothing I can do about it and that's just the way things are. It's called life, and if you're can't deal with it then you're not ready for life in space."

Lucy could only shake her head with incredulity. "I don't understand how you can live with that mentality. Our ability to empathize with others is what makes us who we are."

"Yeah and that's all well and good for what, fifteen minutes? An hour? A few days or weeks if you were really close to the person." He raked his fingers through his hair in agitation. "But then that's it, they're gone. You're sad for a while and move on. What's the point in putting yourself through that?"

She ogled him in disbelief. "Natsu, how old were you when your father died?" she finally asked softly.

"Four or five." He frowned at her. "Why?"

"And has no one close to you died since then?"

"My mother died pretty soon after that. Since then, not really, no."

To Lucy's surprise, she felt the slight prick of tears behind her eyes. She understood why Natsu was so unconcerned with the plight of others—he'd never had a reason to feel pain. His parents had died when he was at a young enough age that he wouldn't really feel grief the way an older person would, and had learned only from his older brother who _had_ been able to grieve. Natsu had seen what that had done to his brother, and had shied away from it. By distancing himself from others for so long (over fifteen years—how had he done it?) he had created a wall around his emotions that prevented him from being empathetic towards others. Obviously he had begun to open up in the past few years; Happy and Gray were proof of that, but…

"I pity you," she whispered. "If you're this afraid to feel now, then what'll you do when real tragedy strikes you? What'll you do when one of the closest people in your life is gone?" The image of her mother's pale, still face flashed through her head, and she shook her head again. "I can't imagine… I'm sorry for bringing this up. We should go check the databanks for those coordinates the man talked about."

His lips parted in surprise as she brushed her way by him through the wrecked ship. She didn't wait to see if he followed though—she simply swiped at her eyes angrily and headed for the main computer for the station.

It was much easier said than done; there was so much damage to the station that she had trouble telling apart a food replicator from a toy tricorder, let alone a main computer. Then she noticed a section of the station that was still lit up, and she made her way over to it. The computer was mostly intact, but it may have been superficial. She'd have no way of knowing the extent of the damage until she tried to access the databanks.

Lucy heard Natsu moving around behind her and decided to ignore their argument for now. They had more important things to be doing. She sat herself by the smoking console and delicately pressed several buttons, trying to get a response from the computer. The lights on the console weakly flickered to life and Lucy began attempting to access the computer's databanks. It was incredibly difficult; for all its outward appearances, the computer had sustained severe internal damage during the attacks, and much of the information was inaccessible. What little that _was_ available had to be accessed through unconventional and roundabout means.

"Oh, this is a disaster," she moaned as she typed away furiously. "This thing's so busted I can't even tell where the coordinates would be stored, let alone find the right ones. Think you can help me out?"

He didn't reply. "Natsu?" Had she angered him so greatly that he was refusing to talk to her? She turned her head to look at him anxiously. The thief was standing near a particularly charred section of the station and appeared to be…smelling it?

"Uh…" she said. "Are you okay?"

He skimmed his fingers lightly over a burnt beam and leaned forwards, sniffing at hit. He looked like a pink-haired puppy with a scarf.

"Natsu, you're freaking me out here."

Closing his eyes, he inhaled deeply and then coughed, wrinkling his nose. He opened his eyes again and looked at her.

"There's something about the smell of this burnt stuff that's bugging me," he told her. "I can't really put my finger on it, but I could swear that I've smelled this before."

She lifted her nose and sniffed. "I only smell smoke," she said. "And that nasty acrid smell of melted plastic and alloys. Nothing really unusual."

"Etherious's noses are more sensitive than yours," he said, smelling the beams again. "There's definitely some other smell here, but for the life of me I can't figure out what it is. It's really pissing me off."

She watched him sniff fruitlessly at the ruins of the station for a few moments before she cleared her throat loudly, catching his attention.

"I know this smell is driving you nuts," she said placatingly. "but I don't think you're going to suddenly get hit with a bolt of inspiration by acting like some kind of mutated bloodhound, especially if it hasn't come to you by now. I think we'll get more done if you help me out with this computer instead."

Natsu nodded and straightened, frowning at the charred walls one more time before making his way over to her. "Yeah, I guess you're right. Maybe it'll come to me later." She got out of her seat and he took her place, beginning to work at the computer and narrowing his eyes as the screen began to glitch on him. "Man, you weren't kidding when you said this was a disaster." He hit a couple buttons and, frustrated, gave the console an angry kick. The computer screens flashed brightly once before going completely dark.

"Whoops," Natsu said. Lucy facepalmed.

"I'm going to call Gray," she muttered. "Get him down here, see if he can manage to salvage anything from this wreck."

"Yeah," Natsu agreed as he rapidly pressed buttons with no response. "Y'might wanna do that."

"No need," Gray said from behind them. "I'm already here."

They both jumped, Lucy letting out a shrill squeal and Natsu spinning around on his chair and throwing his arms into some kind of ninja pose.

"Holy shit ice princess, don't DO that!" yelped Natsu, breathing hard. "How long've you been there for?"

"Calm down flame brain, I just got here," Gray snickered. He was barefoot and shirtless, with his arms folded and was wearing a half-amused, half-exasperated expression on his face.

"Sure ya did," Natsu huffed. "You're such a creep, man."

"Agreed," Lucy said faintly, clutching at her heart. "A little warning next time?"

"And how do you suggest I do that?" asked Gray, raising and eyebrow.

"Just tell us on our communi—" She stopped. "Oh."

Gray clicked his tongue. "Yeah." He unfolded his arms and tossed them two little square flip-communicators. "I know saving lives is important and all, but next time at least make sure I have a way of figuring out when you wanna come back up to the ship when you're done."

Lucy blushed. "Sorry." Natsu frowned grumpily.

"So what happened?" Gray asked. "Did you find the guy?"

Lucy and Natsu didn't look at each other. "He was on his last legs," answered Natsu. "We couldn't save him."

"But he did have a dying request," Lucy added. She told him about the coordinates for the slaves within the wrecked computer and their problem. Gray listened patiently and nodded.

"Both of you should go back up," he told them. "I'll work better here if I can strip without you guys going postal on me."

Lucy narrowed her eyes and took a few hasty steps away from him. "Ten feet," she hissed malevolently, glaring at him.

"Yeah, yeah," he said, rolling his eyes and adding under his breath, "I said I was sorry."

"You don't _look_ sorry," she muttered sourly.

The two of them beamed back up to the ship and told Happy about everything they had discovered down on the station. The Exceed was concerned upon hearing about the slaves and slightly apprehensive as well. His fears were only amplified when Gray came back to the ship with the information from the station.

The four of them gathered in the conference room, a small, bright green room with a translucent yellow circular table in the center. There was a large screen on the wall that could be accessed from panels on the table, and oddly enough it was the only room on the ship to be furnished with an eye-watering shade of neon-yellow fuzzy carpeting. They settled down around the table in large Zoltan seats that thrummed with little streams of energy, complimenting the buzz of their nerves.

"So their computers were pretty much trashed, but I did manage to get two things from 'em," Gray announced. "First is that they had no warning of the attack. From what I can tell, everything was fine and dandy one second and the next they'd had half their side blown into oblivion. They didn't even have time to raise their shields."

"Did they see who attacked them?" asked Happy.

Gray shook his head. "Nah. Their last reports indicated they had no idea where the attack was even coming from."

"So no leads," Natsu said, pouting. "That sucks. That smell's _really_ bothering me."

"What's the second thing you found?" Lucy asked.

He leaned forward onto the table and laced his fingers together. "Apparently the station had been secretly supplying a rebellion on a slave colony in a nearby sector. They'd been sending 'em food and weapons and stuff. It looks like that had shipment planned for today, but, well… _that's_ not gonna happen anymore."

"So where is this slaver colony—what'd they call it, the Tower of Heaven?" Natsu asked.

"I got the coordinates—here, I'll put 'em up." Gray quickly input them into the panel in front of him, and an image of the system appeared on the screen on the wall.

"Oh hey!" Natsu said as the screen zoomed in on the image. "That's not far from here!"

"We could be there in less than twelve hours," Gray said. "If we're gonna go, I mean. This isn't exactly the safest of situations."

"Why not?" said Natsu. "Those slaves'll be expecting aid from this station that'll never come. Someone's gotta tell 'em!"

"I dunno," Happy said skeptically. "This isn't really our business, and we're not really equipped to charging headfirst into the unknown, y'know? Whaddo you think, Lucy? Lucy?" His nose twitched. "Why're you looking like that?"

Lucy had turned as white as a sheet and was staring at the screen with wide eyes. "Natsu?" she said through clenched teeth. "I know you want to help the slaves, but…do we _have_ to go to that system?"

"Why?" Gray asked. "What's wrong with that star system?"

"Um, it's in the Mantis controlled sector?" She received three blank stares in reply. "Honestly, do you no know anything about the sectors you're going to be travelling through? What to avoid, what not to avoid? Hello? _Anyone?_ "

Happy let out a slow, nervous giggle. "I, uh…didn't realize that it was a Mantis controlled sector. Oh…oh dear," he mumbled to himself. "That's not good, that's not good at all."

"So what?" Natsu insisted. "It's just a bunch of Mantis, we can take 'em."

She gaped at him. "Have you lost your mind, Dragneel?" she said "Mantises are _only_ the most powerful and feared warrior race in the known galaxies!"

He shrugged. "We can take 'em."

"Oh can we." She leaned back in her chair and folded her arms. "Tell me something, Natsu: have you ever actually seen a Mantis before?"

"Well, no," he admitted. "But I know what they are; I'm not stupid. Gray hasn't seen 'em either, right man?"

The engineer shook his head. "They never really came up in the thieving business," he said. "They never really have anything worth stealing. We're just told to stay away from 'em."

"And suddenly the reason behind the insanity is revealed." Lucy sighed. "Allow me to educate you, then." She leaned forward and copied Gray's pose, clasping her hands together and resting her chin upon them. "I assume you know what a praying mantis looks like? You know, the relatively harmless insect that can be found on most Terran planets?" They both nodded. "Well, _Mantises_ look about the same…only they're roughly six to seven feet tall. Their forelegs are a good three feet long with foot-long spikes on them that can easily shred through steel and half a dozen other metals. And what their forelegs can't rip through, their acidic saliva will melt through."

"How…nice," Gray said, swallowing heavily.

"Oh I'm not done," Lucy said with relish. "Their exoskeleton is harder than Rockmen's skin, and they exude special pheromones that allow them to move with three times the speed and agility of a human. And they use their abilities, too; whereas praying mantises kill prey merely to survive, the much larger and intelligent Mantis race kill remorselessly to suit their own personal agendas—usually without survival as a concern, making for a pitiless and brutal warrior species.

"Because of all of this, what I'm about to say applies to virtually every known species in our galaxy: if you go up one on one against a Mantis, the Mantis will win. Always. They're simply too fast and too strong to fight, even for Rockmen. If you see a Mantis, you just hope it hasn't seen you. If it has…say your prayers and hope for a miracle."

"Oh, is that all?" Gray mumbled, sweating. "And here I was ready to be impressed."

Natsu made a face. "Don't they have any weaknesses?"

She frowned, thinking. "Well, while they're the best at personal combat, they suck at building and repairing things."

"How come?"

Lucy clicked her fingers together in a pincer motion. "Spiked forelegs are great for rending your enemies to shreds, but they're not the best for intricate tool management. Of course, they overcame that problem easily enough by become the principal slave holders of the galaxy. After all, if you can't do something, just have a lesser species do it for you!"

"Do they work with anyone at all as an ally?" Happy asked uneasily.

She shrugged. "Well, some individual Mantises have been known to work with the Federation, but the race as a whole tends to be deceptive, opportunistic, and untrustworthy. Nine out of ten times they'll sell their own mothers for a corn chip."

"Delightful," Gray grumbled.

"How do you know so much about 'em, Lucy?" Happy inquired. "We've been out in space our whole lives but have only ever heard of 'em, and not nearly as much as you."

She pressed her still-clasped fingers to her lips. "Mantises are bedtime stories," she answered tightly, "for human children who misbehave. We're told tales of their red ships, and of the Mantis invasion of our planets if we don't do as we're told. Aside from Engi, we're the easiest race to subdue, and the Mantis homeworlds are dangerously close to ours. When we grow up we realize that they're not going to attack us if we don't brush our teeth, but the threat of a Mantis invasion is still very real to us."

"Oh," Happy said, looking down at the table. "Sorry."

"It's fine, but don't you see?" She gazed imploringly at Natsu. "The Mantis are not a joke! They salvage the weaponry and defensive technology from the ships they capture. If we get caught, we'll be destroyed. There's no way this will end well for us!"

Natsu pursed his lips and seemed to be considering her words. As she waited, she silently prayed that he would see reason for once. Then he shook his head and clapped his hands.

"Nah, I think we can do it."

Lucy buried her face in her hands in despair.

"Dude," Gray said. "Did you not just hear everything Lucy just told us? We'll be slaughtered over there."

"I did listen!" Natsu protested indignantly. "She said if they catch us we're dead, and I'm not disagreeing. But that's only if they catch us, right?"

Happy's tail twitched. "What're you suggesting, Natsu?"

He gave his feline friend a wide grin. "We haven't had a chance to test out the cloaking device on a real ship yet. I'm thinkin' now's a great time."

Lucy raised her head from her hands. "You want to sneak through the Mantis sector…cloaked?"

He nodded enthusiastically. "Yup! I figure that if we divert power from weapons and shields and a bunch of secondary systems, we'll have enough energy to power the cloak for at least a good twenty-four hours, probably more."

"Sorry?" Gray cupped an ear. "What was that? Did I just hear you say _'divert power from weapons and shields'_ in the middle of intensely hostile territory?"

Natsu nodded again. "Yuppers."

Gray stared at him.

"Aw, don't gimme that look," the rosy-haired thief argued, "We wouldn't be able to use the shields and weapons while cloaked anyway."

"You're insane," his friend stated flatly. "This is the stupidest idea you've come up with to date, and that includes the time you tried to draw on Laxus' face while he was sleeping."

"Those slaves need our help," Natsu insisted stubbornly. "And we're the only ones who can give it to 'em."

"Not if we're all dead," sniffed Happy.

Natsu spread his hands out in supplication. "Come on guys, where's your sense of adventure? We're only dead if we get caught, so we won't get caught! It's as simple as that."

"Only because you're down to your last two brain cells," Gray said with disgust.

"There's no point guys," Lucy said tiredly. "He's not going to change his mind now that he's made it."

Happy groaned. "Can someone remind me why I hang out with you guys?"

"I sure as hell can't," Gray declared, rising from his seat and heading out of the room. "Considering I'm seriously debating committing myself to a psych ward after this, my words should be regarded as unreliable and ignored at all costs."

"Duly noted," Lucy said and lay her head down on the table, letting her eyes flutter shut. She was awfully tired and wanted nothing more to go to sleep and forget about her day that seemed to keep getting worse and worse. Federation bases claiming she didn't exist, surprise lethal pop-quizzes by dangerous aliens, switching ships, battles in the middle of asteroid fields and close encounters with perverted exhibitionists, a destroyed space station and a man dying in her arms, her fight with Natsu, and now the news that they were heading into the territory of her childhood nightmares…yes, sleep was sounding better and better by the second. Unfortunately, a certain blue feline with an annoyingly high-pitched voice was doing its best to prevent her from doing so.

Her eyes flicked open with irritation. "What?" she snapped.

Happy flattened his ears worriedly. "Lucy, you should go to your room and get some proper sleep," he told her. "Lying out here can't be comfortable, and the guys already went to bed. I can watch over stuff—I don't need as much sleep as the rest of you."

She groaned and stretched her limbs. "Fine," she yawned, standing up. "I'll go to bed. Thanks Happy."

"No problem," the little cat said flippantly. Lucy exited the room but as she left, she could have sworn she saw a wicked grin steal over the Exceed's face. Not entirely sure what to make of it, she gave a light shrug and headed for her room. To her surprise, when she arrived she saw a sulking Natsu standing outside of it, fiddling with his scarf and looking extremely awkward.

"Oh, hey Luce," he mumbled. "There's, uh, still no oxygen in my room 'cause stupid Gray hasn't turned the air back on and I was wondering if you meant what you said about borrowing your room 'cause I really need some sleep and Happy's room doesn't have air either and there's no way in hell I'm sleeping with the stripper—"

"Of course," she blurted out, cutting of his rambling. "Come—come on in."

She opened the door to her room and they both walked in. Her quarters here were similar to those on the _Torus,_ only with a smaller window and a better bathroom. They stood by the door, staring awkwardly at the single bed and not meeting each other's eyes.

"Take the bed," Lucy told him at last. "I'll sleep on the floor; I've done it before. I don't' mind."

"So have I," Natsu protested. "It's your bed, I'm not gonna kick you off it—"

"Natsu." She gave him a hard look. "Take the bed. Now."

He still hesitated. "But—"

"Good Lord," she sighed exasperatedly. "If it really makes you feel better, think of it as me paying you back for letting me borrow your bed back on the _Dragon._ I haven't even slept in the thing yet. Seriously, you're not imposing."

He tugged at his scarf. "Fine," he agreed grudgingly. He slowly walked over to the bed and sat down on it, and Lucy pulled out a chair by the little green table in the corner and sat down as well.

They sat like that for a while: Natsu on the bed, Lucy at the table, neither speaking to or even looking at each other. The uncomfortable tension in the air steadily built until Lucy was sure that she could cut it with a knife. After nearly ten minutes of painful silence, Natsu finally spoke.

"I'm sorry," he said, and Lucy looked up in astonishment. "I shouldn't have yelled at you today."

"I'm sorry too," she said quietly, still surprised. It hadn't occurred to her that Natsu would be the first to apologize. She assumed that she would have to take that step, and had been merely considering how to say it. "I shouldn't have gotten so worked up."

"No, you should have," Natsu said. "You had every right to. I was being insensitive. Sometimes I forget that not everyone's like me and Gray and the guild."

She frowned. "You're saying that everyone you know is the same?"

"Kind of. We all came to the guild as messed up kids who'd had crappy childhoods and had lost someone they loved at some point. I lost my dad, Gray's mom died and his dad dumped him, Mira said that she'd been abused as a kid and was an orphan, Laxus' dad nearly killed him…I guess we all kind of have a bit of a jaded view of life." He stared at his feet. "I never really realized 'til now that not everyone shares that view."

"You've been at the guild your whole life then?"

"Pretty much. I'd go there whenever I could. Sneaking away from home was one of my favorite things to do as a kid. And then last year, I finally did it for good."

"Was your home that miserable?"

He snorted. "Both of my parents died within a year of each other. My brother was okay when Dad died, but after Mom…he got weird. Watched over me like crazy, never let me talk to anyone outside the other people in the house—he wouldn't even let me talk to my nanny if it wasn't totally necessary. After a few years, I'd had enough, and ran away for the first time. That's when I met Happy, and not long after that, Gray and the rest. I'd get dragged back every few months or so once my brother found me, but I always ran away again."

"I'm glad you found a place you could be happy," she said honestly. "I wish I'd had your guts when I was little."

He cocked his head. "Why? Did your family also suck?"

She laughed lightly. "Not at first…we actually were a great family. But then my mother fell ill and passed away when I was seven, and after that my dad changed, like your brother. Only instead of obsessing over me, he was the opposite. My governess told me it was because I look just like my mother, and it was painful for him. I could understand that, but it didn't make it hurt any less. He completely ignored me, except to tell me what I couldn't do, which was pretty much everything he didn't consider proper. It took me nine years to work up the courage to openly disobey him, and that's when I enrolled in the FA."

"Wow," he said, looking impressed. "I think it's a lot harder to go against someone when you've been following them for so long then if you never really listened to them to begin with. "

She shrugged. "I guess, if you look at it that way."

"Well, here's to our mutually crappy families," he said, raising an imaginary glass. Lucy laughed and raised one of her own in return. She began to lower it, but put it to her mouth instead to stifle a yawn. Natsu looked sheepish.

"Sorry, we're supposed to be sleeping right now. Didn't mean to keep you up."

"Don't worry about it," she said drowsily. "It needed to be done, and I enjoyed it. Misery loves company, right?" She rose from her chair and sat down on the floor next to the bed.

"What're you doing?" Natsu said, raising his eyebrows.

She blinked. "I'm sleeping on the floor, remember?"

"Oh hell no," Natsu said, shaking his head emphatically. "I said I'd sleep on the bed, but there's no way in the pits of Rura Penthe I'm making you sleep on the floor. C'mere—" With one deft motion he scooped her off the floor and tossed her onto the bed next to him.

"Natsu!" Lucy yelped, flailing about wildly. "You can't—let me go, this is _so_ not okay—"

"Whadday mean? It's fine, there's room for both," Natsu said cheerfully. "Anyway, I thought you liked cuddling. You do it all the time to my jacket."

"That's not—that's totally different—have you _no_ sense of propriety?" she wailed, still struggling fruitlessly to escape his arms that were wrapped around her waist. He really was incredibly strong.

"Propra-what now? Sorry, I dunno big words like that."

"You lying jackass, you know exactly what it means!"

"No idea what you're talkin' about Luce," Natsu said innocently. "But if you keep thrashing around like that I'll just hold onto you all night. I got no problem with that."

Internally Lucy fumed, but she forced herself to calm down—sort of. Long after Natsu had hit the switch by the bed to turn off the lights and whispered "good night," Lucy lay wide awake and stiff as cardboard, glaring at the ceiling. The snoring thief beside her really was an idiot, but she supposed that was why she loved him. As a friend, of course. And before any miserable, insignificant, annoying, and unwanted part of her brain could argue with that, she drifted off to sleep.

OOOOO

When she awoke she was alone, but the spot next to her was still warm, so he must not have left long ago. She sat up with a ferocious yawn, stretching her limbs luxuriously. It may have taken her forever and a blue moon to fall asleep, but once she had she'd slept like a teenager on a weekend. Running her fingers through her hair sleepily, she slid off the bed and headed to the bathroom to freshen up. Lucy opened the door to be met with Natsu's shocked expression and she screamed.

 _Slap!_

"Ow, what the hell?" he moaned, cradling his face. "I was just washing my face…"

Lucy was beet ret and seething. "It's the natural reaction to seeing a man in your bathroom first thing in the morning!" she hissed. "Why aren't you in your own?"

He pulled an irritated face. "You got amnesia or something? My bathroom is currently void of oxygen, along with the rest of my room. Where else did you expect me to go?"

"I…" Her brain seemed to have stopped functioning. She rubbed her eyes. "I'm sorry, it's too early in the morning for this."

He gave her a puzzled look. "Luce, it's o-ten hundred hours. We slept through practically the whole trip to the Mantis sector."

She froze. "What? How long 'til we get there?"

"A half hour, maybe?"

"Are you kidding me?" she shrieked. "Get out, get out, I need to shower! Move!" She grabbed his arm and started yanking him out of the bathroom.

"Shower?" he yelped. "We're going to a slave colony in the middle of a sector full of bloodthirsty overlarge insects, and you wanna smell nice? Why not try and eat some food instead?"

"I can do that later, but I absolutely cannot operate at peak efficiency covered in sweat and smoke—now GET OUT!" With a huff she flung him out the door of the bathroom and slammed it shut.

"Women," Natsu muttered, shaking his head at the door. "I'll never understand 'em."

"I HEARD THAT."

OOOOO

A half hour later after Lucy having showered and them both eaten, they stood at the helm in the bridge as the _Adjudicator_ approached the edge of the Mantis controlled sector. Happy, who had looked extremely bored when they walked in, was delighted to see them.

"You two look like you got some nice shuteye," he remarked cheerfully, a big grin on his whiskered face.

"Yeah we did," Natsu said, cracking his back. "And we needed it, too. Thanks for looking out for things over here, little buddy."

The little cat's grin seemed to stretch even wider. "Sure thing, Natsu. Always happy to help."

Natsu leaned over to Lucy's station and hit the button for the intercom. "Yo Gray, you ready to go?"

"Just about," came the weary reply. "I've gone over just about every circuit and wire in this thing for the past three hours to make sure it's in working condition. If something happens, it won't be because of the cloaking device."

"Great," Natsu said. "So we're off?"

"Just about."

"Good. Also, Gray…"

"Yeah?"

"I know you're all focused on getting us through this in one piece and all, but when we do get out and we're safe again, would you _please_ pump some air back in my room? I kinda wanna brush my teeth eventually."

"Whaddaya mean?" Gray said. "I restored the oxygen to your room while you guys were down on the station."

"Well check again, 'cause nobody's doing any breathing in there any time soon with it like that. Happy's room too."

"Happy's room too? I could've sworn I…" He trailed off. "Huh. Sorry about that. Guess I really am losing my mind."

Happy made a small, strange noise that sounded like a cross between a snicker and a cough. Lucy glanced at him suspiciously, but he simply groomed his tail in a very self-satisfied manner and ignored her.

"Okay," Gray announced. "Ready when you are."

The three of them on the bridge immediately snapped to attention and went to their stations. Now that Gray had given them the go-ahead, the reality of the situation was taking hold: they were about to sneak through Mantis territory.

"It'll take us about an hour to reach the coordinates that we found, so we need to be on our toes the whole time," Natsu said. He inhaled deeply. "Happy, maximum warp. Engage."

"Aye, sir!" Happy said, and the ship shuddered it as it passed into warp. Natsu hit several buttons, and the cloak rose around them, causing their ship to disappear from sight. And then they waited.

For nearly an hour, nothing happened. They travelled at maximum warp, tense as a wire the entire time, each waiting for something to spring out of the darkness at them. Natsu was glued to the helm, staring intensely at the screen with his leg bouncing furiously. Lucy couldn't handle the stressful atmosphere and started pacing back and forth by her seat, while Happy played solitaire on a palm-tricorder. He appeared to be completely nonchalant about the whole situation, but the constant flicking of his tail and ears betrayed his unease.

Suddenly Happy leaped to his feet, dropping his palm-tricorder and pressing controls frantically.

"Our cloak's down!" he cried in dismay.

Both Natsu and Lucy whipped around in alarm. "What?" Natsu said. "What's wrong with it?"

"I don't know, some kind of glitch I think—Lucy, get me Gray!"

She shot over to her station and hailed the engineer. "Gray—"

"I know, I know!" Gray yelled over the intercom. "It's not the device itself; it's some kind of energy feedback from one of the systems it's tapping power from, I just have to figure out which one—gimme a sec!"

"We don't have a second," said Natsu urgently. "We need to get that cloak back up pronto! Someone could pop up at any time!"

"You don't think I know that?"

"Just making sure!"

"Then shut up!"

"Okay, okay, but hurry up—"

"I'M TRYING!"

"Well, try harder!"

"Maybe if you'd just _shut up—_ "

"Natsu." Lucy put her hand on his arm as he opened his mouth to issue a retort. "Let him do his work."

He closed his mouth and nodded. "Sorry," he whispered. "It's automatic."

The seconds ticked by in agonizing silence as they waited. Lucy and Happy's eyes were firmly fastened to the long-range scanners, holding their breaths to see if something would show up on them.

"Got it!" crowed Gray triumphantly. "Cloak's back up!"

"Thank God," Lucy sighed. "Will it happen again?"

"Probably not. The malfunction in the circuit seems to be unique to that specific system."

"Thanks man," Natsu said gratefully. "Sorry for yelling at you."

"Don't worry 'bout it," his friend replied, and cut out.

"It's weird," Happy said, staring at stars zooming by them on the screen. "The cloak was down for nearly five minutes, and we didn't have any shields to stop us from being scanned. Why hasn't someone come to see who we are?"

"Maybe the Mantis don't patrol their territory as much as other species," Lucy suggested. "Or maybe their sensors aren't as good as others'."

"Just be happy they didn't, and keep moving," Natsu said shortly. "We're nowhere near outta the clear yet."

Happy snorted softly to himself. "You don't need to tell us that."

They flew in silence for a few minutes more, and then—

"We're here," Happy announced suddenly. "The coordinates are coming right up."

"On screen," ordered Natsu.

The image of the slaver colony flickered into view, and Lucy inhaled sharply.

"Oh," she said faintly. "I guess that's where all their patrol ships are."

The slaver colony was an asteroid a quarter of the size of a small moon. Most of the surface of the asteroid was just normal bare rock, but in the middle of it, visible even from space, there was a large steely gray patch, as if something was being built on it. And surrounding the asteroid were nearly ten blood-red Mantis ships, fully armed and functional.

Natsu reached over to Lucy's station and hailed Gray, not taking his eyes off the screen. "Yo Gray," he said. "You seeing this?"

"Yeah, I'm seeing it—can we please _not_ go near the fleet of Mantis warships?"

"Sounds good to me," Natsu said. "Where do you wanna go?"

"I think we should circle under the asteroid," Happy said, pointing to the spot he meant. "That way we'll be out of sight of the ships. It's still close enough to transport onto the colony surface."

"That'll work," Natsu decided. "Pull us out of warp, Happy. I'll get us over there."

The exited warp drive just as they came into transport range of the asteroid. Natsu neatly looped them around the asteroid, veering around the warships, and pulled them to a halt just beneath the rock.

"Happy, can you tell what's going on down in the Tower of Heaven?" he asked.

The Exceed frowned. "Sort of. They don't have a shield to prevent beaming—I guess they're not really worried about escapees smack in the middle of their territory—but there's something interfering with the sensors and I can't make out any life forms anywhere."

"The asteroid is comprised of duralumin and cadmium," Lucy said, scanning it. "Those alloys will definitely screw with our life-sign detection. Body heat won't register at all."

"That would explain it," Happy concurred. "There are radioactive hotspots and plasma waves all over the place though, so I'd say that there's some kind of fight going on down there."

"Which would match up with the station's information." Natsu watched the screen for a moment, then clapped his hands together. "Okay guys, here's the plan. You listenin', Gray?"

"Go ahead."

"Righto. So, here's what we're gonna do. We can't contact them because we don't know who's who down there or even who to talk to, so we hafta go down ourselves. We're gonna beam down there, tell them what happened to the station so they know not to expect any more supplies from it, and offer our help. If they want it, we give it. If they don't, then we beam back up and fly outta here like a bat outta hell." He beamed at them. "Sound good?"

Lucy shrugged lightly. "Would it matter if we said no?"

His grin widened. "Nope!"

She sighed. "Then sure, sounds great."

He turned back to the helm. "Awesome. Why don't you three go get whatever weapons we need and meet me down in the transporter room—I'm just going to put the ship on autopilot bunny mode."

"Bunny mode?" Lucy asked Happy as they jogged down the hallway towards the weapons room.

"It's his stupid name for a certain setting that most ships can be set on," the Exceed explained. "The ship maximizes its use of the long-rage sensors to detect anything coming near it. If something enters range, anything at all, then the ship will automatically move away until the object is out of distance, then return to the preset coordinates. That way the whole crew can leave the ship and not worry about it getting stolen or blasted out of sight. It's not terribly reliable though, or at least not long-term; just another reason for us to get back to the ship as soon as possible. But for now, it'll work."

They stopped by the weapons room to grab their ion blasters from the _Torus,_ but there wasn't much else to take. The _Adjudicator_ hadn't come with any new handheld weapons, so they were still stuck with the same useless junk they'd had since Rura Penthe. The more Lucy attempted to prepare to storm the colony, the more she realized how absolutely _idiotic_ their plan was. Lucy also realized that there was no point in working herself up over the fact that she was once again, for the who-knew-how-manyeth-time in the past few months, about to embark on a suicidal mission, so she decided to just stop thinking about it altogether.

She and Happy met up with Gray (who, wonders of wonders, had actually put his shirt back on) in the transporter room for Natsu, who showed up shortly after they did. He was holding four little chips and four square communicators in his hands, which he promptly dished out.

"The chips are transporter chips to get us back onto the ship," he told them. "And the communicators are to be able to talk to each other if we get separated down there."

"Wow," said Gray, impressed. "You actually listened to me for once."

"What's that supposed to mean, popsicle pants?"

"Boys," Lucy said warningly.

"Right, sorry." He cleared his throat. "Anyway, I scanned the layout of the colony down there, and I think the best spot to beam down would be right here." He pulled up the scan onto the miniature screen by the transporter console and pointed to a large rectangular room. "It looks like some kind of storage room, and it's decently far away from any radiation or plasma waves, so it seems pretty safe. Y'know, as much as a hostile slave colony hosting a rebellion can be."

"Just in case, can you drop us near the door?" Lucy asked nervously. "You know, just to be on the safe side."

"You got it." He input the coordinates and stepped back. The four of them climbed onto the transporter pads and waited for the computer to kick in. "But I don't think we'll run into anything _overly_ dangerous…"

The pads activated and the world disappeared around them, only to shimmer back into focus seconds later. The four of them blinked and were greeted by the sight of approximately twenty Mantises standing in a tight circle, clearly in the middle of some sort of meeting.

For a moment, the two groups could only stare at each other, both shocked at the other's sudden appearance. Then the Mantises started to rustle aggressively.

"That's the last time I let you choose the landing coordinates," Gray said to Natsu weakly.

" _RUN!_ " Lucy screamed, and the four of them bolted out the open door, the Mantises hot on their heels.

The ran into a dark, open hallway that they couldn't see the end of. They all ran faster than they'd ever ran in their lives, but Lucy was right—the Mantis were fast, far faster than anything they'd ever encountered before. Judging by the spiked forelegs catching on the ends of their clothing, it was only a matter of seconds before they were caught.

Suddenly, Natsu whipped around and before the Mantises behind him could even process that he'd stopped, exhaled a tremendous ball of fire directly into the insectoids' metallic faces.

The Mantises let out horrible shrieks of pain, stumbling back and attempting to desperately scramble away from the unusually hot flames.

"Ha!" Natsu yelled. "Don't wanna get barbecued, huh, ya overgrown fleas?" He breathed more flames at the Mantises, creating a wall of scorching fire to separate them.

"That won't hold them for long!" Lucy shouted. Natsu backed away, still breathing flames, until he seemed to run out of energy. Then he backed away quickly, and Gray ran forward instead.

"Get moving!" he bellowed, and held his palms to the ground. In sharp contrast to the roaring heat of Natsu's fire, a sharp cold began to gather around Gray. Lucy watched over her shoulder in astonishment as frost collected around his hands and spread to the floor. As he moved backwards, hands still brushing the ground, a trail of ice spread from his fingers to cover the floor and creep up the walls. He did this for nearly twenty feet until his strength, too, seemed to fade and began to run with the rest of them.

"That should give us some time," he panted as he raced alongside them. "Once they get around Natsu's fire, they should have a bitch of time trying to get across that ice with their spindly legs and awkward bodies. They'll crash into each other and hopefully clog the hallway and stop chasing us."

The ran down the seemingly endless hallway, making the occasional turn here and there, but still getting nowhere.

"There's—gotta be—somewhere we can hide," Lucy gasped, clutching her side.

"Guys, they're behind us again!" wailed Happy.

"If we die here I'm gonna kill you, Natsu!" Gray screamed. They made another turn—

The wall behind them exploded.

All four of them were hurled forwards by the force of the explosion and landed face-first in a pile of rubble. The Mantises behind them shrieked once more—it sounded like they had borne the full brunt of the blast.

Lucy climbed to her knees, shaking her head to try and clear it. She looked up to see a group of humanoid figures standing in the dust cloud. A woman strode out of it. She was wearing a raggedy gray dress that hung loosely on her shoulders and looked to be holding multiple small sorts of weapons in her hands. Shockingly crimson hair fell down her back and obscured one of her cold gray eyes, and the other gazed down at them impassively.

"Who are you?" she demanded sternly.

"We—we came to try and help the rebellion that was going on down here," Lucy stammered. "Who—"

The woman cut her off. "My name is Erza Belserion Scarlet, and I am the one who is going to save your pathetic lives. But don't expect me to die trying." And with that, she charged the oncoming army of Mantises.

* * *

 **Review? If you feel like it. Shoutout to anyone who caught the random meme I stuck in here. I couldn't help myself.**

 **Thank you all so, so much for reading. I adore each and every one of you wonderful people.**

 **I'm going to bed now (thank God). See you all next time!**


	15. Natsu & Gray's Guide to Pissing Off Bugs

**A/N: I am so, so sorry this is late. I had a freak ton of schoolwork and finishing college applications and stuff just piled up and to top it all off I had horrible writer's block with this chapter. I had a lot of points I wanted to hit but couldn't seem to make them flow together, and in the end it just got so convoluted that I simply cut the chapter in half. I still hope you enjoy it, though.**

 **Friendly reminder that this is unbeta'd, so kindly pardon my typos.**

 **Also, just a word of warning to those squeamish ones out there: This chapter is a little more violent than usual, and it's only going to get worse from here on out. Space travel isn't all fun and games, y'know. I'm debating a rating change, but...hrm. I'll cross that bridge when I get there. Anyway, enjoy the chapter!**

* * *

Lucy would _not_ be making the same mistake with Erza as she had with Natsu and Gray in thinking that she was human, because there was no way she could be.

To begin with, her speed was supernatural. She darted forward almost faster than the eye could see, leaping off the walls and dodging the Mantis' attacks with frightening agility. Then there was her strength. She struck one Mantis with her arm and the seven-foot tall insectoid went flying down the crowded hall into another two of its fellows. The Mantises hissed in rage and converged forwards onto her. Four other slaves leaped forwards onto the oncoming Mantises and chaos ensued.

Lucy scurried away on her knees from the fighting and squinted, looking frantically through the dust and debris for her comrades.

"Natsu?" She coughed, trying to locate a streak of pink. "Gray? Happy? Where are you?"

A rock flew past her head and something crashed into her back, knocking her forwards. Climbing to her knees once more, she looked behind her to see what had struck her and screamed at the sight of a Mantis on its side, legs flailing angrily in the air. It snapped its mandibles viciously at her. Without thinking, she grabbed a fallen bar of metal near her hand and smashed it into the Mantis' head. It let out a horrible grating shriek and she smashed it down again and again as hard as she could before dropping the bar and scrambled away.

Yells and screams filled the air. Lucy tried her best to head away from them, but they seemed to be everywhere, filling her head and making it impossible to tell what direction she was heading in. Clouds of dust and smoke still hung everywhere and she could barely breathe, let alone see where she was going. Her foot hit something hard and she fell again, nearly bashing her head against a wall. Shaking her head, she looked around and saw a flash of blue.

"Happy?" She scrambled forwards. It was the Exceed, but he was lying on the ground and wasn't moving. "Happy, what's wrong?" Gently, she turned him over and swallowed hard. He was unconscious; a nasty gash ran across the top of his head, oozing blood. Not knowing what else to do, she scooped him up into her arms and kept moving.

At some point as she walked unsteadily through the chaotic halls she must have gotten turned around, because the next thing she knew there were two slaves and a Mantis locked in furious combat right in front of her. She yelped and stumbled back, only to feel her foot hit another object. She glanced down and nearly threw up—she had stepped on a humanoid body missing an arm and half its head, brains spilling onto the floor.

One slave cried out as the Mantis slashed him across the chest, blood and chunks of flesh ripped up by the jagged spikes flying everywhere. Before the Mantis could withdraw, however, the second slave jumped—much, much higher into the air than should have been naturally possible—and twisted the Mantis' head completely around, snapping the neck. The Mantis' corpse slumped to the ground and the victorious slave landing on top of it. He leapt off with his dark shaggy hair flying and ran to his injured comrade's side. He examined the wound, then looked up and saw Lucy standing to the side, frozen in horror and shock. Eyes widening, he beckoned her forwards wildly.

"You're not injured, are you?" he asked her as she approached. She shook her head. "Good. Then help me with him." He slipped his arm under his friend's shoulder and gestured for her to do the same. She shifted Happy's limp body under one arm and knelt beside the injured man, sliding her free arm underneath the other shoulder. Together, she and the other man lifted his friend up and staggered away.

Lucy didn't know where they were going—the man was leading them, navigating his way through the melee and wreckage littering the hall. Suddenly, a flash of scarlet streaked by her vision and then Erza was standing before them, splattered with what appeared to be blood of varying colors and shades. She briefly took in their haggard appearance and her sharp gaze fell on the wounded man between them.

"Sho!" she exclaimed, "Oh God—"

"I'm taking him back to base," the uninjured man told her. "If we get him back now he'll still have a chance."

"Thank you, Simon." She nodded, and hesitated. "Where's Wally?" Simon half-glanced back towards the way they had come, and Lucy's stomach twisted as she thought of the slashed, partially decapitated corpse she'd trodden on. "He didn't make it," Simon said gruffly.

Erza closed her eyes for a moment, then took a deep breath. "I see," she said. "Go, then. If all goes well, we won't be far behind you." And with that, she was off again, as fast as a bullet.

Without another word, Simon started moving again. Lucy followed blindly, struggling to keep the injured man upright without crushing Happy or losing her balance. She kept a carefully eye out for both Natsu and Gray, but to no avail.

Simon led them away from the fighting through a small, narrow, man-made tunnel that seemed to stretch on for miles. At first Lucy kept looking back for pursuers, but then she realized that the cramped crevice was far too tight for any bulky Mantis to get through. It had probably been made for exactly that purpose: to shake off pursing Mantises.

They emerged into a warm, bright room. As Simon and Lucy heaved the man out of the tunnel, a shriek of dismay rang out.

"Sho! Oh my God, Sho, hold on!" A humanoid woman with bushy brown hair, slit pupils, cat's ears, and a furry tail ran forward and caught Sho as he slumped to the ground. "Somebody get me a stretcher!"

Another slave ran up with a stretcher and together the four of them heaved Sho onto it. He was immediately wheeled away. Watching them go, the woman turned to Simon.

"What happened?" she said slightly hysterically. "He's never come back like that before, he's always so careful—"

"Well, he wasn't so careful this time," Simon broke in heavily. "He got too close to a rearing Mantis and took three spikes to the chest."

Her eyes widened and she covered her mouth with a trembling hand.

"Where's—where's everyone else?" she whispered. "Erza and the others? And wasn't Wally with you?"

"Erza and everyone else are still fighting, but Wally…" He shook his head. "I'm sorry, Millianna. There was nothing we could do."

Millianna let out a pained cry and sank to her knees. She sobbed quietly, holding herself and rocking back and forth. "What went wrong?" she finally asked.

"There was almost double the number of them than we expected. This was supposed to be a surprise ambush, not a full-out brawl. We were grossly unprepared."

She nodded shakily and took a deep, calming breath, much like Erza had done. She looked up and finally seemed to register Lucy's presence.

"Um, sorry, but who are you?" she asked in confusion. "I've never seen you here before."

"Yes, I'd like to know the same thing," said Simon as he too turned to look at her. "You're not from here."

"My name's Lucy," Lucy said to them. "I came with my friends to try and help you, but—" She swallowed. "We made a mistake. I lost track of my other friends and Happy…" She cradled the Exceed in her arms. "He hit his head. I don't know how extensive the damage is, and I don't have the equipment to treat him."

Millianna gasped. "He's a kitty! Aww, he's so _cute!_ " She reached out to touch him, but Lucy backed away protectively. Millianna pouted. "We can treat him, don't worry."

"Don't be a fool, Millianna," snapped Simon. "We have our own wounded to treat, and far more will be coming soon. We don't have the resources to waste on some stranger's pet."

"He's not a pet," Lucy informed him frostily. "He's an Exceed, which means he's just as intelligent as you or me, and is a full member of my crew."

Millianna's catlike eyes gleamed. "Really?" She gave Simon a pleading look. "Please can we heal him?"

His brow knit angrily. "No, Millie, we cannot! We don't have the staff—"

"Enough people have died today, we don't need to let someone else—"

"We don't even know who they are, you can't—"

He broke off as noises echoed from behind them. People started pouring out of the tunnel that came from through ruined hallway and filling the room. Simon ran forward to greet them.

"Is everything alright? Where's Erza?" he asked one woman anxiously.

"We're okay for now, but we'll be bringing the wounded through soon," the woman replied. "I saw Erza back there earlier, so I think she's fine."

Relief spread visibly across Simon's tanned face. He took a few steps forward and vanished from Lucy's sight as she was swept away in the rush of people streaming in and out of the room from both entrances. Millianna stayed by her, but Lucy was fairly certain it was more out of a concern for Happy than herself. Together they watched as more and more people came through the tunnel, most of them injured in some manner. Missing limbs, impaled torsos, slashed faces—they had them all. But for all the people flashing by, Lucy didn't see Natsu or Gray, or Erza Scarlet for that matter.

Slowly, the number of people coming out of the tunnel thinned until it was only one or two. Lucy but her lip anxiously. Now that the immediate wounded had been carted off, the ones who remained had begun to notice her and were staring at her curiously. She was acutely aware of the hushed whispers and inquisitive voices saying, "Who's that? I don't remember her," but she was too worried about her missing friends to notice.

Suddenly there was a scuffle by the mouth of the tunnel and Gray stumbled out of it, a look of wild terror on his face. He looked up in panic and saw Lucy.

"Oh, thank God," he said, scrambling towards her. "You gotta help me Lucy, she's insane, she a fucking monster—" He didn't get to finish his sentence as Natsu came flying out of the tunnel and crashed into Gray's back, knocking them both into a sprawling heap on the floor.

"Fucking _hell,_ she's strong," moaned Natsu as he tried to untangle himself from Gray. "What miserable pit did she crawl out of?"

"I dunno man, but—"

"You two," an icy cold voice said, "are the most moronic, idiotic, half-witted pair of _fools_ I have ever had the misfortune to come across."

Lucy looked up from her friends on the floor to see Erza Scarlet standing at the mouth of the tunnel with an expression of pure wrath on her face. Natsu and Gray stiffened and started climbing over each other to get away. She started taking slow, even steps towards them, like a predator stalking its prey.

"What possessed you," she said, her rich, smooth voice booming off the walls, "to make fun of a Mantis' inability to properly wield an ordinary screwdriver in front of over ten of them?"

"Just making small talk," Natsu squeaked as he continued to scoot away from her. "Who knew they were so sensitive?"

"And after provoking them to a point of berserk rage," she continued, still slowly walking towards them, "you decided that rather than fun down the narrow passage where you could easily escape them, it would be a better idea to lead them straight towards me."

"Aw, we knew you could take 'em," said Gray weakly.

"And _then_ , as opposed to helping me fight the group of enraged Mantises that you so kindly _sicced_ on me, it somehow occurred to you that it would be a more productive use of your time to start fighting _each other_ over whose fault it was instead!"

The two men came up against a wall and exchanged fearful looks.

"It was, uh…" Gray swallowed hard. "Brotherly affection?"

Natsu nodded fervently. "There's always time for brotherly affection."

Erza stopped before the cowering thieves, towering over them menacingly.

"Brotherly affection," she repeated flatly. "I see." The room was so quiet Lucy could almost hear her own heartbeat. Natsu and Gray sat absolutely still, both sweating profusely.

Erza inhaled slowly and deeply. Then she swooped down on both men and grabbed them by their hair, yanking them upright. Natsu and Gray both squealed in pain.

"I don't know who you are or what you want," she said to her squirming captives, "but I do know this." She looked them both carefully in the eye. "You two," she said slowly, "are idiots." And with that declaration, she slammed their heads together with a sickening crack. Natsu and Gray were out cold before they knew what hit them.

Lucy gulped and held Happy tighter as Erza released the thieves, letting their unconscious forms slump to the ground. The fierce slave turned around to face Lucy, and it took all of the blonde's willpower to stop herself from taking a step back.

"You there," Erza said briskly. "What's your name?"

Something about the crimson-haired woman reminded Lucy of her Captain King back on the _Zodiac,_ and she instinctively snapped to attention.

"Lucy Heartfillia, ma'am," she said smartly. "We—" she nodded towards the comatose men on the floor "—are a small crew of um, freelancers. We wanted to help with your cause, but upon beaming down here we, er, misjudged the situation." She bowed her head slightly. "I apologize for any inconvenience or damage we may have caused to your efforts."

Erza raised an eyebrow delicately. "Your noble intentions are appreciated, but how would three ragtag mercenaries be able to help us?"

"Four," Lucy corrected, hefting Happy up slightly to show her. "The cat isn't a cat. And we wanted to deliver news."

"News?" she narrowed her visible eye."Of what, pray tell?"

"The space station _Eurus;_ I understand they've been supplying you?" Erza nodded. Lucy took a deep breath. "I'm sorry to have to inform you of this, but… the station was destroyed."

Her lips parted in surprise. "What happened to it?"

Lucy shook her head. "We don't know; when we found it, it had already been sacked. But I'd say that from the looks of it, the attack was unrelated to its supplying you. We found the coordinates for this colony on it and, well, we didn't want to leave you hanging for supplies that would never come."

Erza nodded again. "Thank you. This means a lot to us."

Simon stepped forward. "Erza, this is disastrous," he said urgently. "We _need_ that next shipment—we're almost out of supplies, and our weapons keep breaking on the Mantis' blasted shells."

"I know that, I—" She gave a harsh sigh of frustration. "Fine. Meeting with everyone in ten. We'll discuss it then. For now, go get cleaned up. And Simon—" She gestured to her victims on the floor. "—can you do me a favor and toss those goons in one of the supply rooms? I need them out of the way. I assume they'll make a ruckus when they wake up, so we'll send someone to get them then."

Simon snorted and did as she asked. With a graceful wave of her hand Erza beckoned Lucy to follow her out of the room. The rest of the people who had been watching started to disperse. Millianna followed timidly behind them.

"Um, Erzie," she said, "Their kitty—uh, Exceed—is hurt, and I was kind of hoping we'd be able to take care of him—"

Erza rolled her eyes. "If you can find someone with supplies to spare, then go ahead," she told the hopeful woman. Millianna squealed with delight. Lucy was loath to let Happy out of her sight, but she didn't have much choice. If he was seriously injured, he wouldn't get any better just by being held in her arms. Reluctantly, she handed Happy over to Millianna, who immediately whisked him away.

She followed Erza through a hallway that led into a large compound. Everything was made of dark grey steel, from the crumbling walls and chipped floors to the random bits of furniture and scrap lying scattered about. It seemed like the area had once been a construction zone, but judging by the abandoned machinery and broken tools the work done there had long since been abandoned.

The same could not be said for its inhabitants, however. Wherever she looked, thin people in ragged clothing rushed about, ducking out from underneath damaged overhangs and weaving in and out between piles of trash and heaps of scrap. Almost all of them seemed to have some kind of injury, and they all wore expressions of grim resolve. Lucy began to realize that this uprising must have been going on for some time now and from the looks of things, was on the verge of breaking out into an all-out war.

Several people ran up to them and tried to give Erza aid, be she declined all offers. The crimson-haired slave led her through the compound into a large, airy room with a rough, worn circular table in the middle with misshapen chairs situated around it. There were only a few people in it, and each of them greeted Erza warmly. Erza proceeded to introduce Lucy and explain the situation to them, and while she was doing so Simon joined them.

"I dumped those two like you asked," he told Erza. "They're a couple of tough nuts; they were already starting to come around when I got them there. I left them with Tkaa—he'll bring them here when they're functional."

"Thank you," she said with a nod. She sat down at the table and gestured for the rest of them to follow suit. "Now," she said to Lucy. "You said you've come here to help. How much do you know about this colony and what's been going on here?"

"Not much," Lucy admitted. "We didn't exactly get an abundance of information from the station, just your coordinates and the fact that you were a slave colony in the middle of a rebellion."

One slave raised an eyebrow. "And you came to help anyway?"

She grimaced. "It was Natsu's call. He's kind of our de-facto captain, and we do what he says, even if it's completely insane. In his defense he means well and usually has good ideas, even if they're not entirely thought-through."

"That's one hell of an interesting crew, to say the least," muttered Simon.

Lucy shrugged. "We make it work."

Erza cleared her throat. "Then I suppose I'd better start by telling you what kind of colony this is." She took a deep breath, but before she could speak more people came into the room. It was Natsu and Gray.

"H-hi," Gray said nervously. "This is, um, where that stony-looking guy said we're supposed to be…" He saw Erza sitting at the table and gulped. Natsu followed his gaze and crouched behind his friend very slightly.

"Oh good," Lucy said cheerfully. "You're just in time to hear what this colony is all about. Why don't you boys sit down?"

They both anxiously scooted over to where she was sitting, Natsu taking the seat next to her and Gray next to him. Gray seemed rather distressed by something, but she couldn't tell what. She leaned over and whispered to them, "I trust you both are going to _behave_ here, aren't you?"

Natsu glanced at Erza, who was watching them impassively, and shuddered. "Yup," he whispered back. "Best behavior. We're good." He looked around and raised his eyebrows. "Where's Happy?"

Simon gave a light cough. "Your feline friend had sustained a head wound, so we gave him over to our people for treatment. He should be alright."

Natsu sighed in relief. "Oh yeah, he'll be fine. Exceed's heads are freakishly tough." He frowned, then added, "Thanks."

An extra blink was the only visible sign of surprise on the slave's face. "Not at all."

Erza leaned forward. "Now, shall I?" They all nodded, and she began to speak.

"As you know, Mantises are notoriously poor mechanics; they simply don't have the appendages to be able to wield tools effectively. Instead, they subjugate other weaker races and make them do the work for them—usually Engi or humans. That is what the Tower of Heaven is: a mechanical colony. Specifically, a weapons manufacturing colony."

"Weapons?" Lucy said. "What kind?"

"Generally we make beam-type weapons for the Mantis ships, but for the past ten years a different sort of work has been going on here. Are you familiar with the R-System?"

All three of them shook their heads. "Never heard of it," Natsu said.

"I'm not surprised—it's Class Five lethal weaponry." She glanced at her companions. "Now I'm no engineer, so I can't tell you the specifics, but the R-System is essentially a superweapon for ships over half a mile long in size designed to completely eradicate all life on a ship or planetary surface in a matter of seconds."

Lucy was stunned. "How could a single weapon do that kind of damage?"

She looked at them solemnly. "Thalaron radiation."

Gray inhaled sharply. "Thalaron radiation!" he hissed. "Where the hell did they get that? Research on that stuff's banned in the whole freaking Empire and Federation! I thought it was just theoretical!"

Erza shook her head. "I don't know where they get it. We just work with it."

Natsu made a face. "What's Thalaron radiation? I feel like I've heard of it before."

Gray stared at him in horror. "You don't know what it is? How the hell you call yourself a thief and not—" He stopped at the look on Erza's face. "Thalaron is a type of radiation in the tertiary EM band with biogenic properties, able to consume organic matter at the subatomic level."

"Which means?"

He sighed. "It's basically a type of radiation that eats organic matter faster than you can blink, and there's no way to defend yourself against it. Thalaron's unique properties also allow its effective range to expand almost without limit, meaning that even a microscopic amount can be incredibly dangerous. If there's a weapon for this thing…" He ran a hand through his hair. "It would be the perfect salvaging weapon. Just fire it at a ship, seconds later every living thing on it is dead and you just take the ship for yourself. And if it's big enough to consume a planet…"

"But how would you make a weapon out of radiation?" Lucy asked. "I mean, this stuff's supposed to be theoretical to begin with. How would you make an effective weapon to be able to fire waves of radiation at things?"

This time is was Simon who answered. "A cascading biogenic pulse," he said quietly, "generated through an intermix chamber and fired through thin laser-type emitters."

That didn't mean a thing to Lucy, but Gray let out a soft "Ah," of comprehension.

"So, what," Natsu said. "You started making this big, bad doomsday weapon and…?"

"At first, we didn't know what it was," Erza said. "But as we made more progress, we began to understand what we were building, and once we did it took very little to make us rebel."

Lucy cocked her head. "Why would that be?"

Natsu looked at her. "Whadda ya mean?" he said. "They're slaves—they wanna be free! Of course they're gonna rebel!"

She shook her head. "It shouldn't be that easy. Normally a slave colony of this magnitude would be too cowed by their oppressors to mount a rebellion of this scale. No, it would take much more to make _everyone_ rise up." She narrowed her eyes. "There was some kind of final straw, wasn't there?"

All the slaves exchanged glances. "Let's just say Thalaron radiation was not the only thing the Mantises were experimenting with," an elderly slave said.

Natsu and Gray looked like they really wanted to know what he meant by that, but they resisted. Lucy was impressed, and found herself wishing that she had someone like Erza in their crew all the time.

Simon folded his arms. "And now it's time for our questions," he said. "Who are you? And the full answer this time, too. No quick mumbled answers." He looked at Lucy expectantly, but she smiled and pointed to Natsu. "He's the one in charge," she said. Natsu flashed her a grateful and pleased look and straightened somewhat in his chair.

"My name's Natsu Dragneel, and this is Gray Fullbuster and Lucy Heartfillia," he said, gesturing at them, "and the cat's name is Happy. We're the crew of a small ship that's currently in orbit around this asteroid."

"And what is your profession, Mr. Dragneel?" another slave asked.

Natsu winced slightly. "We're, um…freelancers? Yeah, I guess you could say that."

"Freelancers? Just what does that entail?"

He fidgeted with the end of his scarf a bit. "Uh…liberating…certain items that seem useful? Y'know, that other people don't really need? We, um, help 'em get rid of stuff."

Erza regarded them flatly. "You're thieves, you mean."

Lucy coughed. " _They're_ thieves, ma'am," she said, gesturing to the two men beside her. "Not me. I'm a Federation officer. Lieutenant, actually."

A slave whistled appreciatively. "That's gotta be one hell of story."

"Why would thieves want to help us?" another slave demanded.

Natsu raised his eyebrows. "Because you need it?" They regarded him coolly and he leaned forward, staring at them intently. "Look, I steal stuff and my ethics may not be the best, but I'm not just gonna sit here and let slavery to a bunch of murderous insects pass me by!"

Lucy nodded. "Amen to that." She looked at Gray, who didn't seem to be entirely in the room with them. Upon feeling the prick of her intense gaze, however, he blinked and shrugged. "Same for me, I guess." Natsu glared back at them defiantly. "Well? Are you gonna let us help you or not?"

Erza snorted softly. "I don't mean to be cynical, but how can a bunch of raggedy thieves who needed their butts saved from the creatures they're supposed to be fighting help us?"

The pink-haired thief cringed. "Yeah…I'll admit that wasn't our finest moment. But," he said, folding his arms behind his head and leaning back, "if you give us a six-by-six bonfire and around twenty pounds of ice, we'll be a helluva lot more useful to ya."

"You want _what?_ "

Lucy cleared her throat. "It'll make a lot more sense if you just give it to them. Explaining with them is…difficult." She looked at her crewmates. "I take it neither of you ate before coming here?"

Gray shook his head. "Too nervous."

Natsu scratched the back of his neck. "Kinda forgot."

Lucy groaned and pressed her head against the table. "Why are men such idiots?"

"Not all," Erza said, and frowned at them. "Just yours, apparently." She stood and strode towards the door of the room. "Tkaa!" she called loudly. "Tkaa, where are you?"

A strange being that looked like a lizard comprised of pearly-grey stone appeared at the door. "You called, Erza?" he said is a low, oddly musical voice.

"Yes. Take those three," she gestured to Lucy and the others, "and make a large bonfire for them, and provide as much ice as we possess. They'll give you the specifics of what they need. I need to stay here and fill in the rest of the council on the situation of the station _Eurus._ "

Tkaa inclined his head. "Yes, Erza." He looked at the thieves. "Follow me, if you'd please."

Lucy and Natsu stood and headed over to the doorway, but Gray remained in his seat. He wore a pained expression and seemed to be steeling himself.

"Gray?" Lucy said. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing," he said, and shook his head sharply. "I'm fine."

"You sure man?" Natsu said skeptically. "You've been out of it for a while."

"I'm _fine,_ " Gray said through gritted teeth. "I just need to…" He took a deep breath and pushed himself out of his chair. He took a few steps forwards and staggered, falling to his knees. Lucy cried out and ran towards him, Natsu right behind her.

"Gray, what—" She saw that he had pulled his pants low so that the bottoms covered his feet. She lifted the edges and gasped. His feet had been cut to ribbons, with slashes and scratches all over them smeared with blood and dirt. "Oh, _Gray—_ why didn't you say anything?"

"Not much point," he groaned. "There's nothing we can do about it. They have wounded of their own to treat; they shouldn't have to waste their resources on a stranger's stupidity."

"What do you mean?" Erza asked, looking scandalized. "Where are your shoes, Gray Fullbuster?"

"He doesn't have any," whispered Natsu. He looked sickened. "Dammit Gray, you should have said something." The engineer only shook his head.

"Leave it man, there's nothing we can do right now. We'll fix 'em back on the ship when we're done."

"And how do you expect to fight with your feet having essentially been filleted?" demanded Erza. She rubbed her forehead tiredly. "I suppose we can get someone to look at you…"

"Erza, we can't," Simon argued hotly. "We've already helped out that cat of theirs—we simply don't have the people or supplies to spare."

"I can still help," Gray said, looking up at them. "Give me ice and I don't need to move to be of use to you. I can still do what I need to do from one spot."

Erza regarded him impassively. "Be that as it may," she said sternly, "you are still wounded and your feet will not recover if not treated soon."

Simon stood. "Erza—"

She held up a hand. "I know Simon." Her eye did not leave the man on his knees. "We have a few extra scraps of clothing we can use to bandage his feet, and we can give him shoes from one of the dead."

Gray flinched. "From the dead? Now hold up a sec—"

Her gaze sharpened. "Would you prefer to remain barefoot?"

He paused, then shook his head once. "No, ma'am."

"Then we'll find you some with the right size." She tossed her hair over her shoulder and sat back down at the table. "Now go with Tkaa—we have much to discuss."

Natsu and Lucy helped Gray out of the room and they followed Tkaa through the compound. For the most part Gray bore his pain silently, but every now and then he would let out an agonized gasp and Lucy felt a pang in her heart at the sound of her friend's suffering. She felt as if his injury was partly her fault, as if she should have done more to try and find him shoes. Maybe she should have bargained more with Laxus, or searched an enemy ship for longer, or taken some from _Eurus,_ or just not have let him leave his back on the slaver ship in the first place. She knew it was silly for her to feel responsible for something out of her control, but she couldn't help it—it was like she was the mother of the ship, in charge of making sure that her unruly children buttoned their shirts properly and didn't forget their lunches. Not for the first time, she wondered how they had managed on their own so long without getting themselves captured or killed.

Tkaa led them to a large, empty courtyard with a great firepit in the center. As they settled Gray down on the side, the large lizard-creature began to toss pieces of scrap into the fire pit until he had a sizeable pile. The he fetched some sort of lighter fluid and poured it onto the pile and set it aflame. A blazing inferno roared to life, and a wide grin appeared on Natsu's face.

"Oh, it's lunch time baby," he said with relish. "Just a couple more minutes to make sure you're properly going, and we're in business. Yeah, that's good!" he called to Tkaa. "This is all I need."

Tkaa nodded. "Then I shall go attempt to procure your ice," he said, and vanished into a dark building.

Natsu circled the bonfire with slow, steady steps. The he planted himself firmly before it and inhaled. As opposed to the first times Lucy had seen Natsu eat fire, this time his hair was not in pigtails nor where they under attack in the middle of an asteroid field, and she was able to appreciate the incredible sight in front of her.

The fire swirled around him in bright streams, sparking and crackling as they went. As they approached him the colors seemed to become richer, brighter, until they were almost blinding to look at. By the time they reached his mouth the rivulets of red, orange, and yellow merged together into an almost white color. The flames seemed to fill him, making his tanned skin glow very slightly so that it looked like burnished copper. His pink hair darkened and began to spark slightly, some of the strands turning a glowing red. If Lucy had to describe him right then and there, she would have said that he looked like a fire god straight out of a legend.

All too soon for Lucy's liking the fire ran out and Natsu finished with a satisfied slurp, licking his lips. "Ah, that sure hit the spot!" he announced happily. He glanced over to where Lucy was to see her staring unabashedly at him with open awe. "W-what's the matter?" he asked. "Did some get on me? Am I on fire?" He started examining himself worriedly.

"That—was— _amazing,_ " Lucy breathed. "I've never seen anything like that in my life."

He stopped. "Really?" He started fiddling with the edge of his scarf. "I guess it could look pretty cool if you're not used to it—"

"It was beautiful," Lucy said passionately. "Absolutely gorgeous. I could watch that all day and never get bored."

It may have been an aftereffect of consuming the flames, but Natsu's face seemed to burn red at her remark. "Oh," he said with a nervous chuckle, and started combing his fingers through his hair. "Thanks, Luce. I, uh, appreciate that."

Gray groaned loudly. "Oh, will you two quit flirting in front of me; I'm already in enough pain as it is!"

Lucy jumped and squeaked, "I—I wasn't—we weren't—" She glanced at Natsu for support, be he merely turned a darker shade of scarlet and said nothing. She looked back at Gray. "I, um—"

He let out an even louder moan. "Please, I can't take this anymore, just kill me already!"

Lucy's embarrassment quickly fizzled out of existence and morphed to irritation instead. "Keep wailing stupidity like that and I might just take you up on that offer!" she snapped.

Any further arguments were cut off by Tkaa's return. He was accompanied by several other slaves pulling two large carts loaded to the brim with sparkling ice. They pulled it over to where Gray was sitting.

"Will this be enough?" Tkaa asked. Gray looked at the carts with raised eyebrows and nodded. "Yeah, that's great!" The slaves who had pulled the carts nodded and departed. Tkaa stayed and watched them silently.

Lucy reached into a cart and handed Gray a block of ice. He licked his lips once and muttered, "Man, am I starving," before taking a huge bite out of the ice. His sharp teeth crushed the ice as easily as someone biting into a popsicle.

Gray's meal wasn't as spectacular as Natsu's, but it was by no means a dull affair. With each bite of ice he took, his skin started to take on a shimmering blue tinge that spread from his face down his chest and arms. At first it was like he was made of ice, but the more he ate the darker his skin became until it was virtually black, rippling with the reflection of the light around them. The air around him took on an almost visible chilled hue, and Lucy swore she could see glittering ice crystals gathering in his hair. When he finally looked up from his meal, to her shock she saw that one of his eyes had turned a deep, shimmering purple. He licked the last flakes of ice off his fingers and smirked when he saw Lucy's wide eyes.

"So," he drawled with a cocky grin. "Am I beautiful too, or is that honor reserved solely for the pyro?"

A furious blush threatened to rise to her face, but she fought it down and instead sniffed, "Keep dreaming, Fullbuster. You're pretty at best, unless you happen to find rainbow trout beautiful."

His jaw dropped. "Rainbow trout?" he spluttered indignantly. "In what way do I resemble a fish?"

Natsu grinned. "I dunno man, I think Lucy's right—I never thought about it before, but your skin _does_ kinda look like fish scales."

Gray stared at them. "Fish scales," he repeated in a strangled squawk. " _Fish_ scales. I hate you both." His voice trailed off into a mutter. "Fish scales. Ha! Whaddo they know? At least Juvia appreciates me! I'll show them fish scales…" Lucy and Natsu exchanged highly amused glances and collapsed into fits of laughter, and only stopped when Tkaa cleared his throat loudly. They all jumped slightly—the strange grey lizard had been so quiet they had forgotten he was there.

"Some cloth to bandage your feet," he said softly, holding strips of dull grey cloth out to them, "and we've brought a selection of shoes from our deceased fellows for you to try on." He gestured to a small crate that the other slaves had brought along with the ice carts, as well as a small bottle of water to clean his feet. Gray didn't look particularly happy about the idea of wearing a dead man's shoes, but he didn't have much of a choice and accepted the supplies with a curt thank-you.

Lucy quickly cleaned off Gray's feet to the best of her ability with the small bottle of water and bandaged his feet. He went through several pairs of shoes until he found a sturdy pair of dark brown boots that fit him reasonably well. It wasn't perfect; he was still in a lot of pain and had trouble walking, but was far better than before. By the time she finished, the aftereffects of consuming their elements had faded from both Natsu and Gray, and they looked normal once more. Together, the three of them followed Tkaa back to the meeting room, where they found Erza and the rest of the council waiting for them impatiently.

"You've done all you need to, then?" she said briskly. "Good. Thank you, Tkaa," she said with an appreciative nod towards her comrade. "I'll take it from here." Tkaa gave a short nod and left. Erza rounded on the three thieves.

"Now, you said you wanted to be of help?" she snapped. They nodded apprehensively. "Good. Then listen up, because this is going to be the most important meeting of your lives so far. We're going to take down the Tower of Heaven and the Mantis' fleet above here once and for all, and you're going to help us do it."

Internally, Lucy sighed. It was going to be a long day.

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 **Reviews will help me write faster to make up for my lateness with this chapter. Just saying.**

 **(Pleeeeeeease? I'm really sorry this is late. I'll do better from now on, I swear!)**

 **As always, thanks so much for reading and reviewing, and I'll see you next time!**


	16. Stratagem

**A/N: *Laughs nervously* So... Hi. Life kinda whipped my butt over the past couple of months (preparing for graduation, holidays, siblings coming home for the first time in years, my mother having a nasty surgery, APs, finals, senior trip, mass chaos and insanity, etc.), so this is late. Very, very late. I am sorry. Like, really, really, really sorry. But hey, it's here! So enjoy the new chapter.**

 **Note: FFN's formatting was being really weird as I tried to upload, so apologies if some paragraph breaks seem out of place. I had to reformat the entire thing by each space. Also, unbeta'd! Mistakes are there! Ignore them!**

 **And have fun~**

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The thieves and slaves settled around the table. One slave spread out a large map over the rough surface, and Erza tapped it with a pale finger.

"This," she said loudly, her strong voice ringing through the room, "is a map of the Tower of Heaven. It lists all of the major rooms and passages in addition to the lesser known ones. We've made additions to it as well by including the tunnels that we've dug to avoid the Mantises."

Lucy and the others leaned forward to examine the map. Erza pointed to a large room on the map and looked at the thieves. "Now over here is where the R-System is being developed. You'll notice it's on the other side of the compound which is both a good and a bad thing. It's bad in that it's a lot of running through angry Mantises to get to it, but it's good in that if there were to be a major fight, the slaves on this side of the Tower won't be in danger." She straightened and looked at everyone in the room. "The final plan that we've decided on is that we're going to secure the R-System from the Mantises, and then we're going to finish it."

"Finish the R-System?" Gray yelped. "Why the holy fuck would you want to do that? It's a fucking doomsday machine!"

"With the destruction of the station _Eurus,_ we have no way of receiving further supplies to fight them," Simon answered calmly. "This is the only real weapon we have against their sheer force and brutality. If we complete the R-System, we can eliminate both the Mantises on base with our own strength and then take out the ships in orbit around us with far less damage on our side then without it. Then we'd have ships for ourselves, and we'd be free."

"And the R-System?" demanded Gray. "What about that?"

"We would destroy it once we have won," said Simon.

Natsu nudged Gray in the ribs. "Hey man, it's not that bad of a plan."

His friend threw him a disgusted look. " _You_ would think so." He turned back to Simon. "Look, Thalaron radiation is _not_ something to be screwed with. This is a really bad idea."

"It's not as if we have much of a choice," the elderly slave said. "We're kind of out of options here. And remember young man, we're the ones who built the R-System. We know what we're doing."

Gray still looked skeptical, but he folded his arms and was silent.

Erza continued. "We're going to organize an elite strike team of our best fighters and we're going straight in. We've dug four tunnels in addition to our main tunnel that will help with staying out of the fight, but there are still two passageways and one staircase where we'll be in the open. The R-System will be guarded, but it shouldn't be too heavily because they wouldn't expect us to go back to the place where we work the hardest. Once we've taken the area, we'll have to hold it long enough to complete the main tunnel series that connects the work area to the central compound. If that works, we'll be able to transport the main bulk of our mechanics to the R-System and complete it."

"How long will it take you?" asked Lucy. "How close is it to completion?"

"For the Mantises? A month. For us?" She grinned wolfishly. "Three days. Tops."

Lucy raised an eyebrow. "Three days? Can you hold them off for that long?"

Another slave spoke up. "The entrance to the work area is rather small and narrow. We can blockade it, and only a couple of Mantises will be able to get through at a time if they manage to break it."

"Can't they just blast their way in?" Natsu said.

The slave shook her head. "The R-System is too fragile and _way_ too volatile to risk using explosives nearby. They'd end up blowing up the whole asteroid if the R-System goes."

"What makes you think they won't just gas you?" Gray said.

Erza glanced at Simon briefly before replying, "Sleep gas has no effect on us, and the Mantises don't want to kill us."

"Why not?" said Natsu, surprised. "You're rebelling, for cryin' out loud. Don't they wanna put this thing down ASAP?"

Simon shook his head. "We're extremely valuable slaves, for more reason than one," he said. "They've worked very hard to get us as we are. They don't want to kill us, so they'll try to restrain us some other way."

 _That didn't stop them from going all-out before,_ Lucy thought with a sinking feeling in her gut, thinking back to Sho's slashed chest and the corpse she'd trodden on.

Gray raised his hand. "Um, I don't mean to be a skeptic, but how do you intend to power the thing to use it on the ships? The power generation required for a weapon of that size and complexity would have to be astronomical—isn't that why it can only be equipped to half-mile long ships or bigger?"

The old slave smiled at him. "Are you an engineer, my boy?" Gray nodded. "I thought so. You have an uncommonly keen and creative mind—don't let it go to waste. As for your concern, yes, it does require an incredible amount of energy to power. Fortunately, if we redirect the power from the main generator for the entire compound to the R-System, the power is sufficient to fire the weapon. And we only need fire once."

A chilled silence fell at those words. Lucy was filled with uneasiness at the thought of such a powerful and lethal weapon out in the universe, and judging by the expression on Gray's face he felt the same. Natsu, on the other hand, seemed blissfully unconcerned.

"So who's gonna be on this strike team?" he asked eagerly.

"I will," Erza said. "So will Simon, Tkaa, and several others."

"And us?"

She tilted her head. "Why would we bring you with?"

He blinked. "Be…cause we came here to help?"

"You have done nothing to convince me that you are capable of fighting in any manner. I thought I was being generous just by allowing you to sit in on this meeting."

"You don't know that," he protested.

"Don't I? You ran for your life from the Mantises, antagonized them, then set them on me while you argued in the corner. That doesn't speak much of your mettle as a fighter."

"Aww, that's not fair," Natsu argued. "We were caught off guard when we came here. We know what we're doing now—we'll be fine."

"I said no, Natsu Dragneel. Every person here is a hardened warrior, tried and tested. I cannot permit some strangers to embark on this critical mission—"

"But we _can_ fight, we do it all the time!"

"What part of 'no' do you not understand?"

"But if you just—" Natsu frowned, holding his stomach, then burped a large fireball onto the table, setting the map on fire. The slaves cried out in shock.

"Oops," he said.

"Natsu!" Lucy scolded, completely unfazed. It was amazing what didn't surprise you when you travelled with someone like the rosy-haired thief. "Where are your manners?"

"Sorry," he said sheepishly, trying to put the fire out. "Wasn't expecting it." He patted the flames rapidly, but stopped as a sheet of ice crept across the table and froze the flames mid-dance.

"That was gross, even for you," Gray informed his friend as he lifted his fingers from the surface of the table. "And I shouldn't have to clean up after your mess."

"Hey, nobody asked you to!"

"They didn't have to—those flames weren't going out on their own."

"I was handling it!"

"Yeah, with what, your head? 'Cause we all know you don't use it for anything else."

"Screw you, ice princess. I'm surprised you could even see 'em with those droopy eyes of yours."

"Well at least I've got manners, Mr. I'm-gonna-burp-a-freaking- _fireball_ -in-my-hosts'-faces—"

Erza slammed her hands down onto the table, making the arguing men jump. "Enough!" she called sternly. She looked at Lucy. "Do they ever stop fighting over nothing at all?"

Lucy sighed heavily. "If only. Then I might not always have this splitting headache."

The stern slave regarded the men consideringly. Then she said to them, "Pardon me for asking, but what species are you?"

Natsu and Gray exchanged a quick glance. "Etherious," Gray said. "We're from Alvarez."

"And you as well?" Erza said to Lucy.

"Nope," replied Lucy glumly. "Just your plain old vanilla human."

"And I'm an Exceed!" a voice yelled, and Lucy turned to see a streak of blue flash in front of her face and crash into Natsu's chest. It was Happy, and he was wailing loudly as he clung to Natsu's shirt. "Natsuuu…" he sobbed. "I missed you so much! These people are weird and kept poking me and they wouldn't tell me where you were or if you were okay!"

"Hey there little bud," Natsu said, patting the small cat's head. "I'm fine, don't you worry. But what about you? You're the one who got his head bonked around."

"Oh, I'm fine," Happy said with wide eyes. "My head just aches a little. We Exceeds have thick skulls," he added proudly. Lucy gave an unladylike snort at that remark.

"I'm sorry!" a woman cried, and Millianna ran into the room. "I didn't mean to let him loose, it's just he was so cute and I thought he'd stay put and I didn't know he could move like that and he just seemed to know where to go without any signs and I'm so sorry Erzie!" She skidded to a halt and glared at Happy, panting heavily. "Bad kitty! Nobody said you could just start running around the compound by yourself. And interrupting a council meeting!" She shook her head angrily, stormed over to where Natsu was seated, and attempted to pry the wriggling Exceed off his friend. "You are a very _bad kitty!_ "

"No!" Happy shrieked. "No, Natsu, don't let them take me!" It was no use—Natsu was so confused that he simply sat limply in his seat, blinking bemusedly.

"Millianna." Erza held up a hand, and the cat woman froze. Happy wrested himself from her grip and buried himself in Natsu's shirt once more. "Let him stay. What I'm about to say pertains to him as well."

With a disappointed sigh, Millianna nodded and took several steps back, melting into the shadows. Erza folded her arms and looked back at the thieves. "I'm assuming you can reproduce these actions on a larger scale?" she asked with a nod towards the frozen flames on the table. Natsu and Gray gave a muttered confirmation, and she smiled, pleased. "Very well, then you may join us."

Natsu gave a joyous whoop. "Hell yeah! I'm all fired up now!"

"All of us?" said Lucy uncertainly.

"All of you. You said you wanted to help, didn't you? Then this is your big chance."

"Huh?' Happy pulled his head out of Natsu's shirt to stare at her blankly. "What's our big chance? What are we allowed to do?" He looked up at Natsu. "What did you sign me up for?"

"Ah, don't look at me like that," said Natsu cheerily. "You'll love it, I promise."

The cat's whiskers and tail dropped simultaneously. "I don't like the sound of that…"

"Excellent," Erza said crisply, rising from her seat. "In seven hours, this operation will commence. Simon, inform those that were chosen of their mission and tell them to prepare. I'd give longer, but this is as long as I can safely guarantee that the Mantises will still be in disarray from our last attack. We need to strike while the iron is hot. Any objections or questions?" The room collectively shook its head. "Then we meet at the eastern tunnel at o-nine-hundred hours. Dismissed."

People began filing out of the room, chatting quietly with each other. Lucy and her friends, however, remained in their seats.

"So…now what?" Lucy said.

Gray snorted. "Are ya happy now, flame brain? You got the crazy fight you were looking for."

Natsu grinned ferociously. "You bet I am."

"Is anyone gonna tell me what's going on?" said Happy in a small voice.

"You explain," Lucy said to the boys, and put her head down on the table.

OOOOO

They had seven hours to kill and nothing specific to do, so they wandered around the compound aimlessly, exploring. Lucy tried to curl up in a corner and get some sleep, but it was no use; she was far too wired and jittery to relax. They ended up back at the courtyard where Tkaa had given them fire and ice, and the four of them gathered around the still-smoldering firepit and sat on the worn metal benches, Lucy taking her seat beside Natsu while Happy and Gray shared another. Talking quietly among themselves, they attempted to pass the time until Happy pricked his ears and announced that someone was coming. It was Erza Scarlet.

"I'm glad to see that you're not making trouble," she commented as she approached. She had changed out of her bloodstained clothes and put on a new outfit, but it was just as torn and ragged as her last one. To their immense surprise, instead of walking on she sat down on the bench beside them. Natsu and Gray exchanged wary glances and scooted ever-so-slightly away from her.

"I take it you four are rather well-traveled, are you not?" she said to them. They nodded. "I don't suppose you would have heard…" She took a deep breath, staring at the firepit with her single visible eye.

"Nearly five years ago, we had a similar rebellion take place here, although not on this scale. During that rebellion, a group of us actually managed to steal a ship and escape. They're the ones who enlisted the help of the station _Eurus_ for us. They…they weren't strong enough to help us on their own, but they promised that they would return with reinforcements. And that…was the last we heard of them. So I have to ask: have you met or heard of man named Jellal?"

She looked up with a hopeful eye to be met with four blank stares. "Human?" She sounded desperate. "Blue hair, tall, a red tattoo over his right eye?"

"I'm sorry," Lucy murmured, "but I don't know anyone matching that description." Natsu and Gray nodded in agreement.

"What about Richard? Sawyer? Erik? Any of them?" They all shook their heads again.

"It's been five years," Natsu said. "Is it possible they might've just…?"

Erza shook her head adamantly. "They would never have abandoned us. Never." Her eye grew misty. "Never Jellal." She stared at the glowing embers for a moment longer before swiping at her eye angrily and leaping to her feet.

"I'm sorry for bothering you," she blurted out. "Please get some rest before we head out." She started to hurry away, but Lucy caught her hand before she could leave, pulling her back down to the bench.

"Hey, you're worried about your friends," said Lucy. "That's nothing to apologize for."

Natsu nodded. "Yeah, if Lucy or Happy went missing I'd be all over everyone's face tryin' to find out where they were," he said, then added, "Gray not so much though."

"Same to you, pal," said Gray carelessly. "I'd leave your sorry flaming ass to rot any day."

"They're actually the best pair of friends you'll find anywhere," Lucy told Erza in a loud whisper, "but you'll never get them to admit it."

"Hey!" Natsu objected hotly. "No way in hell is that true!"

"How dare you," muttered Gray, looking deeply insulted. "I'd rather be friends with a Slug pirate over him."

"They looooove each other," sang Happy, and he darted to the side to avoid Natsu's swinging fist. Erza covered her mouth, giggling, then laughed outright. Natsu froze in his attempt to strangle Happy to stare at her. They had never seen the grim-faced slave show any positive emotion before, and the change was radical. Her entire face lit up and she had a blinding white smile that highlighted her natural beauty, which was easily overlooked in the dirt and gloom that dusted her face. She was like an entirely different person.

"I've never met people like you before," she said, still laughing. "Everyone here has been beaten down and hardened by slavery; we don't really know what it's like to be frivolous anymore. It's just not in our nature. But you four…it's refreshing." She smiled at them. "Thank you."

Both men turned pink and stared at the floor.

"Uh…you're welcome," Natsu mumbled.

"Glad you find our sworn enmity so amusing," grumbled Gray.

"Oh, I do," she assured them. "But I think Lucy and Happy here are right—it's obvious that you two love each other very much."

"We do _NOT!_ " they yelled in unison. Peals of laughter escaped Erza's lips once more, and this time Lucy joined her with Happy following suit shortly thereafter. At first Natsu and Gray tried to maintain their air of righteous indignation, but soon they too succumbed to the joyful atmosphere and were chortling right alongside them. For several minutes the five of them just sat there laughing uproariously with each other, until the hearty guffaws subsided to errant chuckles and small giggles. Erza looked far happier than they had ever seen her so far, and she didn't seem to be in a hurry to leave. Noticing this, Lucy asked her if she wanted to hear how she had ended up with Natsu and the others. She agreed, and the crew of the _Adjudicator_ spent the next couple hours regaling her with tales of their adventures, the boys even describing their own various mishaps, much to the amusement of Lucy as well as Erza. All too soon, however, their happiness came grinding to a rough halt when an older slave came running up to them with a grim expression on her face.

"You'd better come quick, Erza," she said to her. "It's Sho. He's not doing well."

Erza leapt to her feet. "Thank you for everything," she said quickly to the thieves, and hurried after the other slave.

Natsu stared after her. "Y'know," he said thoughtfully. "When she's not wearing devil horns, she's really not that bad."

"Just stay on her good side," Lucy advised. "I'd hate to piss her off."

Gray gulped and rubbed the sore spot on his head where Erza had cracked his skull into Natsu's. "You don't need to tell _me_ that."

"It's kinda weird though," Happy piped in. "If they had a rebellion as recently as five years ago where slaves actually managed to escape then how're they having one now? Slavers are usually super strict for years after an escape."

"And another thing," Lucy said, "they mentioned their weapons earlier, but I haven't seen a single piece of weaponry once in the entire compound, not even right after the fight in the hallway."

Natsu frowned, then shrugged. "Well, we'll find out what's going to soon enough. We're gonna fight with them, remember?" he prompted in response to her confused expression. "We'll see what they fight with then."

"Speaking of which," Gray said, "We're gonna need to talk strategy of how we're gonna fight, what with my messed-up feet and all."

"I've been thinking about that…" Natsu eagerly launched into a discussion about different fighting techniques and tactics. Lucy listened for a little while, but felt her eyes grow heavy and without thinking she lay her head down on Natsu's shoulders, and let the sound of his voice lull her to sleep.

OOOOO

To Lucy's great surprise she slept for the entirety of the rest of their free time. Natsu had apparently at some point had also fallen asleep, his head resting on hers as he snored lightly through his open mouth. Despite their awkward position they both slept soundly and probably would have continued to do so had they not been rudely awoken by a loud, barking voice.

"Oi, lovebirds! It's almost nine-o-hundred hours! Get up or we're leaving you behind!"

Lucy and Natsu both jerked awake, knocking their heads together with sharp exclamations of pain. Rubbing her head ruefully, Lucy blinked and looked up to see Simon scowling down at them. Behind him, Gray stood in a bored pose with his arms folded while Happy stood beside him, looking world as if he were desperately trying to avoid cracking a rib with silent laughter.

"Geez, don't you people know how to wake a guy up?" Natsu griped, massaging his shoulder where Lucy's head had been resting. "You seriously need good mothering lessons."

"I'm not here to mother you," Simon informed him shortly. "I'm here to kick your sorry asses into gear and hope you don't get us killed. Now come on, I'm to take you to our exit point."

Grumbling, Natsu followed him with a sheepish Lucy trailing behind. Gray limped after them with Happy's help and together the five of them joined up with the rest of the strike team that was waiting for them. Erza and Tkaa were there, along with several other tough-looking slaves of various species. Lucy noted with some interest that of the entire group, only one slave was armed with a militaristic looking rifle that probably shot more than your average bullet. Everyone else was barehanded. As Erza greeted the men Lucy scooted over to the slave and asked in a hushed whisper, "You got any more of those?"

The slave looked at her in askance. "Yeah, a couple, but you think you can handle 'em?"

She shrugged. "I had basic military training in the Federation Academy, so I can use your standard disruptor, ray gun, phaser…the works."

The slave didn't look convinced. "These babies aren't exactly basic, y'know."

"They can't be that bad, right? All I've got is an ion blaster. I don't think that's gonna do much against a charging Mantis."

He gazed at her in horror. "You don't have a _weapon?_ "

"Rub it in, why don't you," she said gloomily. "But I don't see why you're making such a fuss over me when you're the only one here with one. Everyone else is in the same spot I am."

"Oh…" He shifted uncomfortably. "They have weapons, just not your normal ones. Don't worry about them." He stepped away from her. "I'll…I'll get you a weapon. Just hold on a second."

"That was weird," Happy said from around her ankles. She jumped slightly, not having noticed his presence. "I didn't see anything that looked remotely like a weapon on any of the others."

"I guess we'll have to do what Natsu said and wait and see," she replied. The slave came hurrying back, this time toting a phaser rifle over his shoulder. It was an older model, not like the types she had practiced with back at the FA, but it would do. She hoped that she remembered how to use it, she thought as she thanked the slave and moved back towards her friends, or at least that her atrocious aim had improved somewhat over the years.

"Alright people," Erza announced. She stood near the mouth of a tunnel similar to the one leading to wrecked hallway. "We're going to be running for a good fifteen to twenty minutes before we hit the end of this tunnel. From there we'll have to fight our way down the last three hallways before we got to the main construction room. Now, Gray—" She narrowed her eyes at the engineer. "Are you sure you'll be able to run that distance?"

Gray glanced down at Happy and nodded. "Yup. Got it covered."

"Good. Then let's go." She turned and ducked into the tunnel, and the rest of the band followed her. With a sinking feeling in her stomach Lucy set off after them. She hoped she'd be able to keep up with the group, but her hopes weren't high—she was horribly out of shape and her past two months aboard small ships had done little for her physique. Internally, she heaved a heavy sigh. First the gun, now the running…she really should have maintained her training post-graduation. She'd grown complacent on the A-class _Zodiac_ and now was paying the price.

The tunnel widened slightly and they were able to start running. And boy, did they run. The slaves were inhumanly fast. Lucy ran at full throttle but she was still falling behind, and even Natsu wasn't doing much better. Finally they had to beg the slaves to slow down, because otherwise they'd never catch up. The slaves grudgingly acquiesced, slowing to a light sprint. They continued to run down the tunnel for what seemed like an eternity. Twice she had to stop and catch to her breath, much to the displeasure of the slaves. Whenever they argued, however, Natsu would fiercely insist that they give her a minute, making her flash him a grateful smile while she panted.

At first they didn't know where Gray was, but at one point the slaves looked up and cried out in shock upon seeing the engineer soaring above their heads, held aloft by the blue cat whom they could have sworn before did not have white wings extending from his back. While Gray explained to the confused slaves that Happy was _not_ actually cat, said not-cat flapped smugly above their heads, seemingly wholly unaffected by Gray's considerable weight. Once again Lucy was left to marvel over the strange and amazing nature of the Alvaresians, but for once she wasn't alone in her wonder.

Finally Erza raised her hand and signaled them to come to a halt. "They're here," she said. Her head tilted and she appeared to be listening intently. "Five of them, close together. Simon, Koala, Arlong—take the left flank. Natsu, Lucy, Tkaa—take the right. Gray, approach from above, but only after we attack." She tensed. "Now Simon, go!"

Simon and the two other slaves dashed out in front of them and in seconds had made it through the exit of the tunnel and down the corridor. The Mantises barely had time to react before the slaves were upon them, slashing with weapons that Lucy still couldn't see. She didn't have much time to look, however, as Natsu and Tkaa both started heading for the skirmish as well and she had to hurry behind them.

All five of the Mantises were distracted by Simon and the others and failed to notice the second group's approach. The slaves had tactfully all pulled to one side so that the Mantises were all bunched on the other—that way when Natsu ran forwards he was able to exhale an enormous fireball to the right of the group. The two Mantises on that side shrieked in agony as they were caught in the edge of the unnaturally hot stream of flame. The third Mantis leaped over its comrades' flaming bodies and launched itself at Natsu, but Tkaa intercepted it and grabbed one of its spiked forelegs with his lizard-like fingers. At the places where his hand touched the Mantis, the normally shiny dark-green exoskeleton immediately turned a pale grey and began to crumble like powdered rock. The Mantis hissed and took a swipe at Tkaa, but Lucy deftly flipped her rifle in her hands and shot the Mantis squarely in the head. Thanking her lucky stars that her body still remembered how to shoot a phaser rifle, she aimed it towards the other Mantises, but they were already falling to the ground, heads twisted completely around by the other slaves. Erza stepped forwards, opening her mouth to congratulate them, but Gray cut her off with a loud yell.

"There're more of them coming down the hall!"

They all collectively leaped backwards as the hall flooded with nearly ten more Mantises. Natsu quickly sent a wall of flame roaring to life between them, but several of the enemy got through. The slave who'd given Lucy her gun fired off a large blast of plasma energy at them but they dodged at scuttled forwards, the deadly spikes on their forelegs slashing at the slaves.

The slave Koala and Erza both ran forwards simultaneously and swung their arms at the Mantises. Lucy _still_ couldn't see any weapons because things were moving too fast, but whatever they used must have worked. Dark blood sprayed into the air and the Mantises wailed.

More Mantises surged forwards despite the flames and Simon jumped high, high into the air and kicked two Mantises in the heads as he came down. Natsu bound after him and punched another Mantis hard in the chest. His blow was so powerful that it dented the insectoid's shell and it crumpled.

Two Mantises ran at Lucy. She yelled and fired repeatedly at them, some of her shots going awry but many of them landing. She couldn't hit them in the head though, and so they kept coming. One came faster than the other and its foreleg raked down towards her. She swung her rifle up to block the strike and kicked the Mantis in the chest as hard as she could. It stumbled back and knocked into its fellow behind it. Before they could untangle themselves, Tkaa ran forward and grabbed them both by the heads. Instantly they turned grey and crumbled, and both their bodies stopped moving. Another three Mantises charged up behind Tkaa but before they reached him they were blocked by shards of deadly sharp ice raining down from above, cracking their shells and causing them to retreat. Lucy looked up to see Gray hovering above them with Happy's help and showering the icicles down from his outstretched hands. Before the Mantises could recover from Gray's attack, Natsu ran forward and engulfed them in the blazing inferno of his breath.

For a moment all Lucy could see was fire, and then it faded. She blinked, trying to restore her vision, and when the world came into focus all she saw was a pile of Mantis corpses and the raiding party standing over them, breathing heavily. Natsu was hunched over with his hands on his knees, exhaling raggedly, with Tkaa standing by him in a protective pose. Simon was underneath Gray towards the back of the hall still crouched in a wary position, and Arlong…Lucy's stomach flipped. Arlong had manifested very sharp, large teeth, almost like mandibles, and had sunk them into the neck of a Mantis. Ripping his teeth out, he saw her looking and grinned ferociously, mandibles clicking with blood dripping down his chin. Trying not to be sick, Lucy turned to Erza and Koala to see if they were okay and her stomach stopped flipping and simply fell through the floor.

Erza and Koala were crouched over the fallen bodies of their enemies with both their arms held out in defensive poses. Their hands were empty of weapons, and for the first time Lucy understood why. They didn't need any. For protruding from their arms in graceful, deadly curves were series of long spikes that looked exactly like those on the Mantises' forelegs.

Natsu broke the silence by pointing at the spikes and saying loudly, "Are those natural?"

" _Natsu!_ " Lucy hissed reproachfully.

"I'm just asking…"

Erza straightened, her face slightly red. "This isn't the time to speak of it," she said stiffly. "We need to keep moving."

"No, wait," Gray said, landing gently on the ground with Happy still holding onto his shirt. "What's going on with those spikes? And that guy's teeth?" He jerked his head towards Arlong. "You guys haven't moved like humans at all the whole time we've been here, but I thought you maybe just looked like humans but were actually something else. But those spikes and mandibles are Mantis'—they look exactly the same." He frowned hard. "Are you people Mantis hybrids or something? Are you even slaves? What's this all about?"

"You—" Simon stepped forward angrily, but Erza threw out an arm, stopping him.

"No Simon," she told him softly. "We should have told them once we agreed to take them with us on this attack." She looked Gray straight in the eye. "We are human," she said, still in that same soft voice. "Or at least, we were."

"What do you mean?" Happy asked nervously.

She closed her single visible eye. "Initially, this was just a labor colony designed to manufacture weapons for the Mantis. However, over the years as the colony grew in size, someone decided that it was a waste of resources to just use slaves as brute labor, and a group of scientists, both Mantis and other species, were brought in and began to experiment on us as well as the weapons.

"Apparently whoever ordered this wanted to know if it was possible to give other species the Mantis' superior capabilities, such as their speed, strength, and durability. They also wanted to know if certain body parts of dead Mantises could be transplanted into another species. So they started taking out some slaves from the regular work groups. We rarely saw those who came back, and those who did were either insane afterwards or fell sick soon after. Either way, they died.

"Over the past few years, however, they had begun to perfect the process. Less slaves were dying immediately afterwards, and fewer and fewer were falling ill. However, there were other side effects present that hadn't had a chance to manifest before when the patients died so soon. Now they began to emerge, and it…wasn't pretty. Slaves might have been conditioned to be able to handle the Mantis pheromones and hormones that gave them the speed and strength of a full Mantis, but those chemical messengers tended to work in other ways too. The patient would become more Mantis-like—more aggressive, with tendencies to stutter over their words and hiss when angry; they sometimes even had trouble moving as they did before. They were also much more prone to violence, and in more ways than one." She sighed heavily. "My mother was one of those people."

Lucy swallowed hard. Her _mother?_

"My mother Eileen was a tough woman, with a strong personality and a stern disposition. She was the one who got us through the tough days, when we were worked too hard or weren't given enough to eat to keep going. And she loved my father, loved him more than anything in the world." Her eye glistened slightly. "Loved him enough even to have a child born into slavery, simply because he didn't want to have me aborted.

"They started taking both my mother and me when I was a few years old. At first there didn't seem to be any side effects of the experiments on either of us, and the Mantises were thrilled. To them, we were a sign that their work was finally paying off. Then one time, my mother went a particularly long stretch of time without seeing my father."

Erza's gaze hardened as she stared at all four of the thieves. "Did you know that when Mantises mate, the females will bite off the male's head during intercourse and raise their young on their own?"

A block of ice slipped down Lucy's throat and into her stomach. She couldn't mean…

"My mother was thrilled to see my father and that night, as they always did when they were separated for long periods of time, they made love to each other. Only this time, my mother had just come back from the labs, pumped full of Mantis hormones. And before she knew what was happening, she had killed my father.

"Once she realized what she had done, my mother lost her mind. She said she could no longer live a life as a monster and before anyone could do anything, she had slit her wrists. She bled out over my father's corpse."

Happy let out a soft little whimper and Natsu and Gray both looked equally sickened.

"Over the next ten years or so, fifteen more similar accidents occurred. The last one was when Millianna's parents had a minor disagreement over where a box should be placed and beheaded each other. The Mantises didn't even let us stop working to take away their bodies. Instead, they ate them." Erza set her shoulders and looked at them determinedly. "That was the last straw. We rebelled two days later."

Lucy was at a complete loss for words. She had known things were bad on a slave colony, but this…The Tower of Heaven was a place of unspeakable horrors. She swallowed heavily and squeaked, "I…"

Erza shook her head. "I didn't tell you this in order to garner pity or consolation. I don't care if you feel sorry for us or see us as mutated monsters—you offered your help, and you will see it through. I have told you this because you asked, nothing more. Are we clear?" Without waiting for an answer, she stepped over the Mantis corpses and continued down the hallway. Simon and the other slaves followed suit, regarding the thieves with guarded expressions before pressing on.

Gray was horrified. "I didn't mean to…I didn't know what I was asking," he whispered. "I…shit, I'm sorry."

"How could you have known?" Natsu said. He looked ill. "How could any of us have know?" He shook his head. "C'mon, let's get going. We don't wanna fall behind."

They hurried after the slaves. Lucy kept waiting to hear the sounds of fighting down the hall, but to her surprise they heard nothing. Finally they caught up to the others, who were lined up against a wall by two large steel doors.

"This is it," Erza announced quietly. "Through these doors is the R-System. Because we're so far in, there should only be a few guards milling about. All we have to do is secure this room and hold it for a few days while the rest of us complete the tunnel."

Lucy glanced about furtively, then leaned over and whispered to Koala, "Shouldn't there have been more Mantises down the hallway? I thought Erza said this area would be packed."

Koala shrugged. "I thought so too, but maybe they're more concentrated in another area. We can't afford to worry about it though—just go with the flow."

Erza raised her hand. "On my mark," she said, and nodded to Simon. He typed in several commands into the keypad by the door. A loud _ding!_ echoed through the hallway, and the doors started to shudder open.

"Now!" she cried, and they rushed forward, spreading out into the room and looking about frantically. Lucy lifted her gun, ready to blast the nearest Mantis into oblivion, but there weren't any. In fact…

"Erza," she said loudly, staring. "This room is completely empty."

"What?" she said, running in behind them. "That can't be, what do you—" She skidded to a halt, her eyes wide with disbelief.

The slaves and thieves were the only ones in the room. The R-System was gone.

* * *

 **I know you're mad at me for not uploading, but...review anyway? Plz? *cue puppy eyes***

 **Thanks for reading, I'll see you next time! ^_^**


	17. Crumbling Tower

**A/N: So...I'm back. I'm sorry this took so long, but I'm gonna be real here: the ending of Fairy Tail killed my muse.**

 **It was awful.**

 **I can't have been the only one who expected more from that. Half-resolutions, horrible fights, no logic, random nakama powerups...I mean, I've followed FT for years, so I've come to expect certain things, but this took it to a whole new level, and I was horrified. And considering that wrote this story to be modeled after certain events in canon, to say I was appalled when they never happened is an understatement. There was no END, no Acnologia backstory, no conclusive shipping moments, no END, no ultimate techniques or skills (we didn't even get all the star dresses!), basically nothing of substance about Anna, no END, no information on the Spriggan 12 aside from the "important" ones (including what happened to half of them after the war), no canon deaths (argh argh ARGH), _nothing_ on the fight that the Celestial King and Mard Geer supposedly had 400 years ago, and _did I mention there was no effing END?!_**

 **I have had to go back and rewrite 40% of my story due to the fact that the events in canon they were supposed to be based off of NEVER FREAKING HAPPENED. Putting it _very_ mildly, I'm frustrated. Frustrated and disappointed. Fairy Tail has been one of my top three favorite anime/manga for years now, and to see it go out like _this,_ with such horrible writing when I know it can be better (I'm looking at you, Rave Master) really saddens me and like I said before, kinda slaughtered my inspiration to write this.**

 **But.**

 **I have the sweetest, _nicest_ group of readers that I could have ever hoped for, and I really don't want to disappoint you just by stopping writing. I think (hope) you all want to see where this story goes, so I'm gonna show you. It might be slow going because next week I'm leaving the country to go study abroad for a year so I don't know how frequently I'll get to write, but I  will keep this story going. So please, bear with me-I promise the payoff will be worth it!**

 **That being said, this A/N is pretty long and I'm sure y'all wanna read the chapter, so here ya go!**

* * *

Erza's face drained of all color, her face looking as pale as snow in sharp contrast to her scarlet hair that fell across her face and down her shoulders like streams of blood. She looked all around the airy, spacious room frantically, but Lucy had spoken the truth—the weapon was truly gone, together with anything else that might have been in the room.

"This—this cannot be," she said in an odd, strangled voice. "How can the R-System be gone? Why would they take it? It's not yet complete!"

Simon ran up to her. "They can't have transported it; the thalaron is too volatile for that. They must have manually moved it, so it can't be far."

"Where would they take it?" Gray called from above where Happy still carried him.

Erza shook her head slightly in an attempt to get a hold of herself. "I don't know…it didn't even occur to us that they would have moved the R-System, so we didn't consider the options." She looked up in confusion. "What would they do with it? They need us to finish it!"

"Maybe they don't," Natsu said. He was standing near the door, wiping the sweat off his forehead. "You said it was almost done, right? Maybe they decided that they can do the rest themselves."

She shook her head, frustrated. "But—"

Suddenly, the whole room shook violently. They all cried out in shock, waving their arms to keep their balance.

"What's going on?" Lucy shouted. Two more tremors quaked through the room. Erza ran for the door, calling out behind her, "Everybody out! We need to find the R-System, now!"

They rushed out of the doors after her down the rest of the hallway. They ran into the next room but found it too, to be empty. Room after room was found to have been cleared of all equipment and tools, and the slaves were on the verge of panic.

"I don't understand," Koala said tearfully. "If they've taken all of our supplies, does that mean they don't intend to stay on this asteroid anymore?"

"That cannot be," Tkaa said softly. Of their entire group, he was the most calm. "They have invested decades of research into us. They would not abandon their own creations."

"Then why move it?" said Gray. "If they weren't intending to leave, then why take the R-System? Do you think they would have anticipated your plan?"

"Considering most would regard it as suicide, I would think not," Erza replied with narrowed eyes. She seemed to have recovered from her initial shock and collected herself. "Forget the reason. No matter why they moved it, there are only a few places in the Tower of Heaven large enough that they could move it to. They obviously didn't move it to the compound, and there was nothing in the forges…"

"Did they move it to a shuttle bay?" the slave with the guns asked, referring to the airspaces where shuttle cruisers docked to transport materials to ships manually. "They're big enough there to hold it."

Simon nodded. "That would make sense. Shuttle bay 3 isn't far from here."

Natsu grinned. "Then let's—" The hallway shook hard once more. "What _is_ that?"

"I think they're shock waves," Happy called from above. "I can feel the vibrations in my wings. It feels a lot like an explosion."

"Too many questions that we don't have the answers to," Erza snapped. "We're going to shuttle bay 3 _now._ " The rest of the party obeyed, the urgency of her order spurring them on to greater speeds. They raced through two more hallways before drawing up short in front of a lone Mantis in the process of sealing a door. It hissed and reared in surprise but before it could flee, Erza issued a harsh command.

"Capture him!"

Simon, Tkaa, and Arlong pounced on the Mantis, grabbing its forelegs and twisting them sharply behind its back before pinning it to the ground, its short hind legs flailing wildly in the air. They held it to the ground as Erza stalked forwards to loom above the prone insectoid, her face in shadow and her eyes blazing. "Where is the R-System?" she asked in a low, calm voice.

The Mantis spat furiously at her. "I don't sssee why I should tell you anything." With a slight jolt, Lucy realized that this was the first time she was hearing a Mantis speak. It had a thin, reedy voice that was somehow harsh at the same time. It punctuated its speech with hisses and splutters, and it drew out the letter S like a snake. Struggling fruitlessly, the Mantis clicked its mandibles angrily. "Filthy ssslave."

Erza nodded curtly to Simon, who took one of the Mantis' forelegs and jerked it sharply in the wrong direction. The Mantis screamed and cursed at them. Simon kept bending the foreleg while the Mantis screamed until with a sickening crack, the foreleg severed clean at the elbow joint with a spray of dark blood. The resulting shriek of agony was so loud and grating Lucy released her gun and clapped a hand over her ears to block the noise.

"One disadvantage of having more limbs than humans is that you have more of them to break," Simon lightly informed his writhing captive. "I can do this all day."

The Mantis's reply was a strangled expletive and a few things in a language Lucy didn't recognize. Judging by the darkening of Simon's face, however, he did understand, and nodded to Arlong to have him start bending the other foreleg. Lucy averted her eyes as the slaves went through the Mantis's foreleg and three more hind legs before it finally screamed, "Shuttle bay! We took it to the third shuttle bay for transssportation!"

"That's better," Erza said with grim satisfaction, pleased that their suspicions had been confirmed. "Now, what are—" She broke off as the hallway shook again. "What the hell _is_ that?"She meant it as a rhetorical question, but looked back down at her captive sharply. Upon hearing her question, the Mantis had let out a garbled, wheezing laughter that only increased in volume as she glared at him. "What's so funny?" she snapped.

"You think that finding the R-Sssystem will bring you freedom?" it rasped. "You foolish ssslaves are doomed. Even as we ssspeak my fellows are exsssterminating your precious comrades. Sssoon all that will be left of you disssgusting fleshsssacks is ashes, and you. And then you will be gone too, and there will be only Mantis."

What little color that was left in Erza's pale face drained completely, leaving her as white as bone. "You lie," she said with a wide eye. "You've spent decades experimenting on us, you wouldn't just kill us all—"

The Mantis laughed again. "You think we cannot replicate the resssults? We have the data from all our tesssts, we need nothing more. We can ssstart a new colony with new ssslaves, ones that are far more sssubmissive. We have no more ussse for disssobedient labor." It wheezed, seemingly having difficulty breathing, and then out an awful shrill giggle. "None of you even guessssed that the bombsss we had you all building for the passst few monthsss would be used to wipe out the compound for the nexssst time you rebelled! You ssstupid little ssslaves!"

The Mantis continued to laugh loudly as the slaves all recoiled in horror. It was only when Erza ejected a spike from her arm and punched it through the Mantis's stomach did its obscene laughter cease, choking off into wet gurgles before fading entirely.

"It was lying," Koala said, her voice shrill with panic. "It had to, it had to have been—" Another tremor rocked the hallway, and she swallowed hard. "It has to be something else."

"Yeah, maybe they're mining or something," Natsu started to say, but stopped as Erza stood. Her face was still white, yet it was a perfect portrait of calm composure.

"The source of those explosions does not matter right now," she stated simply. "We have a mission to carry it out, and we will see it through. The R-System must be destroyed, and right now we're the only ones who can do it." When both Natsu and Gray opened their mouths to protest she gave them a fierce glare, and they swallowed their words. No one else tried to argue, and the group set off once more, leaving the broken corpse behind them.

They rounded a corner to encounter a group of Mantises gathered tight-knit in the hallway before a massive door that could only lead to the shuttle bay. Erza and company wasted no time in attacking, descending upon the surprised aliens in a wrathful frenzy. They hacked and slashed their way through their enemies with a wild ferocity, seemingly uncaring about their own personal safety. Lucy and her friends were slightly more prudent, but not by much. The news that the dead Mantis had delivered to them had shaken them all to the core, and it seemed that the only thing they could do was kill as many Mantises as possible.

With a final brutal stroke of her arm, Erza severed the head of the last Mantis in the hall and opened the doors to the shuttle bay. They slowly rumbled open to reveal veritable hordes of Mantises swarming around a massive machine, clearly in the process of loading it into a shuttle cruiser. The R-System looked like a small, round skyscraper lying on its side and covered in wiring and various metallic protrusions. If Lucy had to compare it to something, she would have said it resembled the pictures of the old Empire State Building from the ancient Terran planet Earth, only far more sinister looking.

Upon seeing the slaves at the entrance, the Mantises collectively let out an eerie hissing noise that echoed through the metal walls of the massive shuttle bay. And then all at once, before anyone in the group managed to process that there were twenty times the amount of foes they thought would be present, they charged.

Every moment following that was a blur. Time seemed to consist entirely of flashing lights, slashing spikes, fire and ice and flying limbs. Lucy lost track of what she was even shooting; if it jumped in front of her, she shot it. Spikes and claws and sharp teeth nipped and scratched at her from every angle, cutting her all over. On particularly deep slash across her arm narrowly avoided severing the limb altogether, and she had to try and retreat somewhere to quickly slap a makeshift bandage over it so she didn't lose too much blood, but there was a major problem—there was nowhere to go. Everywhere she turned there was another Mantis leaping at her, forelegs extended and mandibles clicking wildly. Every time she tried to turn away, there was another wound, another flash of pain, another thing to shoot.

Dimly, in the back of her mind, she noticed that the Mantises were all still hissing creepily as they fought. It was never-ending, as if they never had to breathe. It rang in her ears like the ringing after a too-loud explosion, ripping through her head and straight into her heart and made her more afraid then she'd ever been in her life. It wasn't a rational fear of death; no, she'd had her fair share of that. This was far more primal, more instinctive—it was like the hissing was bringing every fear she'd had in her life and manifesting it in her head all at once, right here and now. Even as she took shaky steps back and fired her weapon as fast as she could aim, images of her old night terrors flickered in her mind. The dark. Her tutor's ruler across the back of her hands. The creek she'd almost drowned in. Her mother taking her last breath right before her eyes. Being alone. Her father's indifference towards her. And the light reflecting off the dark, cloudy surface of a Mantis's claw. She couldn't hear anything else over it—not the clash of arms, not the shrieks of the wounded, not the blast of her gun, not even her own screams.

Lucy took another trembling step backwards and a body crashed into her. She fell onto the floor hard and pushed it off her. Fumbling for her gun, she looked down at the body and screamed. It was Koala. Her gaze was wide and as empty as the giant hole where her chest used to be.

Lucy tried to scramble to her feet but slipped on the ever-growing coat of blood that covered the floor. Before she could rise again, a Mantis lunged at her and sank its teeth into her shoulder, right above the massive cut that she'd received. She screamed again and jabbed the point of her gun into its glistening compound eye with all her might. The Mantis wailed in agony and instinctively released her. With a feral kick Lucy shoved it away from her, but the gun was embedded too deeply into its eye and was ripped out of her hand. Before she could try and reach for it to retrieve it, the Mantis retreated into the crowd and was lost.

Breathing hard, Lucy frantically willed herself not to panic. In a desperate attempt to buy herself some time, she flung herself to the ground and prayed that in the chaos of the melee around her, the Mantis would think she was dead. Then she rolled herself over to the side, trying to avoid the multitude of dancing legs around her. She kept rolling and pushing, every now and then lashing out with her leg to trip up a Mantis (it worked, too) until finally she felt her back hit a wall.

Propping herself onto her good arm, she raised her head slightly above the ground and surveyed the battle around her. The actual fighting was so fast she couldn't track it with her eyes, but she could see the floor well enough. To her relief she didn't see any familiar bodies aside from Koala's, but that didn't mean much. There also weren't any weapons lying around conveniently for her to scoop up. She tried to sit up to get a better look, but her head spun sickeningly and she collapsed back onto the floor.

 _Blood loss,_ she thought dimly. Her bad arm was still bleeding freely, and the dark red oozing down her chest and running down her stomach implied that her shoulder wasn't doing much better. Slowly, she also realized she was shaking. _Or shock. Maybe both? Either way…have to stop the bleeding…have to tie it up._

But with what? There was no first aid kit magically sitting next to her, and Natsu's jacket was too tough for her to rip with her bare hands. She tried to tear a strip off her skirt, but she couldn't muster enough strength with just the one arm.

Turning her head slightly, she realized with a start that she was only a few feet from the doors. If she could get out, then maybe she'd be able to find something. Get some help. Anything. _If_ she could get out. The half a dozen Mantises in the doorway could pose a problem.

A sob welled up in her throat and tried to force its way out of her mouth, but she swallowed it down. Now was not the time for panic. Now was not the time to think about being killed. Now was not the time to think about her mother dying on her bed or the long, cold days her death without anyone, without friends or family or anyone to comfort her, not even her own father. Now was _definitely_ not the time to wonder if death would be like that too—dark, cold, and completely alone. So why couldn't she stop? Why couldn't she stop thinking about those horrible days? And why wouldn't that horrible hissing stop?

Lucy felt herself starting to feel faint. Everything was getting quieter, the battle less prominent, the colors less vivid. There was a cold numbness in her fingers and toes, and her head was ringing. She tried to focus on something, anything, but all she could feel was the chill. It was stealing up her legs now, that deep, wet cold that sapped her strength and filled her head with fog.

Suddenly, there was a roar and a wave of searing heat swept over her. Lucy shook her head and blinked. Her jaw fell slightly open as she beheld a tremendous column of fire erupt from the middle of the fighting and blast its way to the ceiling, nearly fifty feet above them. The pillar of fire was twisting like a tornado, with streams of different shades of red and gold circling through it. She knew that fire—she'd seen it only the day before. It was Natsu's.

The warmth from the blaze seeped into her skin, chasing away the awful cold in her limbs and dispelling the fog in her mind. Slowly, she climbed to her feet, weary but pulsing with renewed determination. The fire hadn't just driven out the cold, it had also burned away the awful thoughts coursing through her psyche. Intellectually she knew that she'd merely been given a burst of adrenaline and wasn't actually any better, but for a moment she let herself believe that the warmth of Natsu's fire had healed her.

The column of flame, which had stretched so high, now began to fall. Like a fountain the flames descended onto themselves, looking like it was collapsing in on itself. It reached the ground and for a brief moment it seemed to be gone. The Mantises swarmed in on the spot where it had fallen. Then, with an even louder roar than before the fire blasted out again, this time expanding outwards in a circle like an explosion. The heat from the flames was so intense that Lucy, who had taken a few steps forward, fell back against the wall again, trying to shield herself. But like before, it faded and she was able to look up once more.

Trying not to gag at the stench of roasted insect, Lucy glanced at the door to see if the Mantises there had moved. Unfortunately they had not, and Lucy still didn't have a weapon. But there was no way she was letting herself collapse again. She looked around the blood-soaked room in a frenzy, but there was still nothing but a whole lot of Mantis corpses.

An idea struck her. It wasn't appealing and she wasn't sure she had the strength to pull it off, but a quick glance at the rivulets of blood coursing down her arm and chest told her she had neither the time nor the luxury to be picky.

Quickly, she darted forward back into the fray. A Mantis leaped at her, but she ducked underneath its swing and rolled to the ground, coming up in front of a Mantis corpse. She braced herself against its body with one foot and grabbed a spike in its foreleg with her good arm and pulled. It didn't budge. She pulled harder and began to twist, but it still wasn't coming out. Improvising, she grabbed its other foreleg and used one of the spikes on that to start hacking at the base of the spike she wanted, then pulled again. This time she felt it give way a little. Lucy stood up and put all her weight into heaving with her good arm. With a loud cracking and sucking noise, the spike was pulled free.

Smiling to herself, Lucy flipped the spike in her hand and thrust it into the head of an oncoming Mantis. The creature dropped to the ground and the spike slid out of its head with disconcerting ease. Lucy spun around and charged for the door. The Mantises shrieked and rushed at her. She was able to block the first few attacks and even killed two Mantises with her new weapon, but it was only after the four other Mantises raised their forelegs in unison to strike her down did she belatedly realize that this was a very stupid idea to try with only one working arm. They descended upon her. She desperately swing her spike up to try and block, knowing it wouldn't help, but then something pulled at the back of her jacket and suddenly she was soaring high above the battle, her feet dangling helplessly beneath her.

"What the—" she yelped, twisting around. "Happy?"

"I gotcha, Lucy!" the Exceed cried. They flew over the furious Mantises (who, angry at being cheated out of their kill, flung themselves into the main fray) through the door and out into the hallway. Simon and Arlong were already out there, both nursing serious wounds. Gently, Happy dropped her next to them.

"You looked like you needed help there," he said to her as he landed softly in front of her.

"You could say that," Lucy replied, her voice cracking in relief. "Wait, if you're flying around by yourself, then where's Gray?"

"I dumped him on the maintenance deck back in there," Happy said, jerking a paw towards the shuttle bay. "It's high up and there weren't too many Mantises up there. He's fine. Raining icy bolts of destruction upon them even as we speak."

"It's completely insane in there," Simon said. He had a huge gash in his side and seemed to be staunching the blood with the bottom half of his pants. "We can't win that. Not like this." He shook his head. "We didn't anticipate numbers like that. This…this is suicide."

"I dunno about that," Happy said, "but I can agree that we can't win like this. We gotta regroup, so I'm gonna go get everyone I can and get them out here so we can talk strategy."

"Won't they just chase us out here?" asked Arlong, whose leg had been practically shredded to ribbons.

"Not if I get Gray to lock the doors shut behind us." He spread his wings and took off again, shooting back towards the shuttle bay. "Wait here and take care of yourselves, okay?" he called. "I'll be right back with the others!"

"Lucy." She turned back to look at Simon. He leaned over and ripped several more strips of material off his pants and handed them to her. "You look like you could use these."

"Thanks," she said, surprised. She hadn't realized he remembered her name. Gratefully, she accepted the cloth and tied it around her arm and shoulder. It was awkward work; being able to use only one hand was a serious detriment to her bandaging skills, but she made it work. She looked back at Simon and incredibly, began to giggle.

He raised an eyebrow. "You find me having a hole the size of a fist in my side to be amusing?"

She shook her head but couldn't seem to stop giggling. "No, I'm sorry, it's just—I think it's the blood loss, or the shock, but—" She tried to compose herself but broke out into slightly hysterical laughter again. "—your pants—" She gestured helplessly to them, or at least, what was left of them. He has used so much material to bind their injuries that one leg was about the length of a boxer leg, and the other was short enough to be a woman's short-shorts.

He was appalled. "You're laughing at the state of my pants at a time like this?"

"I'm sorry, but I—I—" Laughing, she shook her head again, harder this time. "I can't seem to stop laughing!" She collapsed into uncontrollable chuckling.

"She's in shock, alright," Arlong remarked dryly. "Gone completely nutty." He glanced at the remains of Simon's pants. "Y'gotta admit though, ya do look pretty damn stupid."

Simon glared at him. "You're not helping."

Happy came soaring back into the hallway, this time with Gray dangling from his paws. The Exceed dumped him rather unceremoniously onto the floor, causing the engineer to curse in pain.

"Dammit Happy, that hurt!"

"Sorry," Happy panted. "I'm getting a little tired here. You guys are _heavy_." With that flattering remark, he flew back into the shuttle bay.

Gray flipped himself over so that he was sitting on his rear stretched his legs out rather gingerly so that he didn't disturb his feet. His shirt was gone (again) and there was a thin cut on his collarbone and another on his back. Aside from that, he seemed unharmed. "So are we calling it quits on this psycho plan, then?" he asked.

Simon shrugged. "I don't know what we're doing," he said honestly. "I just know that that room is a death trap right now."

"Great," Gray groaned. He dropped his head back, staring at the ceiling. "Why do I always find myself stuck in death traps?"

"Maybe it's because they're attracted to you," Lucy suggested, grinning.

Gray stared at her in confusion. "Huh?"

"Y'know, 'cause you're never wearing a shirt!" At the sight of his nonplussed expression, she started giggling hysterically again, leaning against the wall and clutching her ribs.

Gray goggled at her, then looked at the other two men. "Is she in shock?"

"Oh yeah," said Arlong, nodding. "Big time."

"I'm fine," Lucy cackled, still holding her sides. "I'm totally fine, I—" She took several large, deep breaths. Straightening, she flattened her palms against her sides and wiped the sweat that had gathered off of them. "I'm fine."

"You sure about that?" Gray said, still staring at her. "Because you sure as hell don't look fine."

"I am," she insisted, breathing deeply. "I'm…I'm fine." She gazed at the floor with wide eyes, then blurted out, "Koala's dead."

"What?" they cried.

"Yeah," she muttered. Her eyes didn't leave the floor. "She's gone. Along with half her chest. Just…gone," she said, gesturing half-heartedly.

Simon closed his eyes. Gray shook his head in disbelief and said, "But she was just…"

"It happens like that," Arlong growled. His face was stony. "Blink of an eye. Once second they're there, and the next…they're not."

"Never seen it like that," Lucy mumbled. "With my mom, it was slow. Slow and painful. Took months. Not like this." She finally looked up. "Is this any better then what my mom went through?"

Simon looked at her sadly. "I don't think we'll ever know the answer to that."

Just then Happy came soaring back towards them with Erza in his paws. He dropped her to the ground and fluttered in the air for a moment, gasping. "There—there you go," he wheezed. "Gotta…go get Natsu now. Stupid idiot…won't stop fighting." He flapped his wings harder. "Gray, you better be ready for us when we get back. The second we're through those doors, close 'em."

"Yeah—sure—but what about the others?" Gray said, lurching to his feet with a wince.

Happy shook his head wearily. "No point," he said, and then was gone.

Erza, who had landed on her hands and knees, pushed herself to her feet. She was soaked in so much Mantis blood that it was hard to tell if any of it was hers underneath all that dark muck. Her face, while spattered with blood, was stoic.

"We need a backup plan," she said hoarsely. "I never even imagined that we would end up going up against numbers like that. Frankly, I'm amazed that this many of us made it out of there."

Simon snorted. "I wouldn't have if it weren't for that insane pyromaniac. His flames roasted half of the bugs on the spot, including most of the ones I was fighting."

"Erzie?" A voice echoed faintly down the corridor. The group spun around to see a haggard Millianna staggering towards them.

"Millie!" Erza gasped, and rushed forwards to catch the cat-woman, who was about to collapse. "What on earth are you doing here? You were supposed to be back at the compound waiting for our signal!"

Millianna shook her head tiredly. Her face had a nasty cut across it, and she was favoring one leg. "It's gone, Erzie," she said in despair. "It's all gone."

"What do you…?"

"The compound. Everyone. All gone. Not even a half hour after you left they came pouring in, rounded us all up in the courtyard. We thought it was a personnel inspection, but then Dalton heard them talking about setting up bombs. I…I snuck away to chase after you and warn you. And then, and then…" Her voice trembled. "I felt the bombs go off." Tears filled her eyes, and she burst out into loud wails. "I should have been there! I knew what they were going to do, I could have done something, but I ran away instead!"

Erza stroked her hair soothingly. "There was nothing you could have done. If you'd stayed you'd be dead too."

"I'm a coward," she sobbed. "I should have stayed."

Just then Happy shot through the doors clutching a flailing Natsu. "Now, Gray! Shut the doors!" he yelled.

Gray hit the keys on the control panel at a blinding speed and the doors began to shudder close. Several Mantises raced through before the doors could properly close, but Erza and Arlong pounced and made short work of them. With a jubilant exclamation, Gray hit several keys and stepped back.

"These babies aren't opening unless I tell 'em to," he announced.

Happy dropped Natsu, who hunched over with his hands on his knees, panting hard.

"Whoo," he breathed heavily, "that was crazy. I mean, I was having fun and all, but that was getting a little hectic even for my tastes. Who knew there were so many of the bastards?"

"Natsu!" Lucy ran over to him and flung her arms around him, heedless of her injuries. "Oh, I'm so glad you're okay!" In the background she could hear Gray griping, "Oh sure, she sees _me_ and I get made fun of, but she sees _him_ and it's all hugs and tears! I see how it is."

"Hey Luce," said Natsu, patting her back. "Good to see you're in one piece. Things were pretty hairy in there." She pulled back to see him grinning at her.

"That's one way of putting it," she mumbled, too happy to see him to be annoyed at his nonchalance.

Erza went back over to Millianna. "Are you sure there's nothing left of the compound?" she asked gently. "Anyone at all left?"

Millianna bit her lip and shook her head. "I don't see how there could be."

Erza inhaled deeply and nodded. She turned to face what was left of her strike team. "We need to figure out a way to destroy the R-System," she stated boldly.

Happy raised a paw. "Um, shouldn't we be focusing on getting away?" he asked timidly. "I mean, doesn't survival kinda trump revenge at this point?"

"Not right now. Our top priority at the moment is to destroy that weapon. Can you imagine what would happen if the Mantis succeed in getting it off this asteroid? If they make it operational?" The Exceed shrank under her cold stare. "Devastation. Destruction like the galaxy has never seen. They could wipe out species with that. So when I say preserving our lives is secondary to preserving the lives of countless worlds and civilizations, I mean it."

"Sorry," he whispered, and said no more.

"So, what do we know about this situation?" Erza asked them.

"Aside from the fact that it sucks?" Gray said.

She glared at him. "I meant that we could use to our advantage."

"Well, the Mantises haven't opened the shuttle bay doors yet," Lucy said, "so the only way in and out of the bay is through here."

"But that won't last long," grunted Arlong. "They'll have the bay doors open soon enough, and the R-System out along with 'em."

"There's about fifty of 'em left in there," said Natsu, "and seven of us. Sorry, eight." He squinted at Millianna. "When'd you get here?"

"Which means that we're sorely outnumbered," Simon said, ignoring Natsu's question. "Making our ability to take out the R-System drastically reduced."

"What if there were less?" Gray asked.

Simon frowned. "What do you mean?"

"If we took at the Mantises, would you be able to take that machine out?"

"Yes, but…surely you don't have the strength to eliminate fifty of them in one go?"

Gray snorted. "Hardly. But if we could open the bay doors and disable the force field surrounding it, the Mantises would get sucked right out along with the air. This asteroid is too small to have an atmosphere."

Erza straightened. "Is that feasible?"

"Theoretically…yeah, I guess. But there's one problem." He glanced at the doors. "The control panel for the bay doors is on the other side of the bay, with fifty Mantises in between. We'd have to hack our way through."

"And not get sucked out with 'em," Arlong put in.

"That'll be a problem," Gray said. "See, I saw the panel earlier while we were fighting, and…" He sighed. "There's nothing to hold on to."

Natsu paled. "You mean whoever opens those doors is gonna get sucked into space."

"That's the gist of it, yeah."

"We can't ask someone to do th—"

"I'll do it." Millianna had pulled herself together and met Natsu's incredulous gaze with calm determination.

"Lady, you can't—"

"I can and I will," she declared. "I let my friends down once when I ran away from the compound; now's my chance to make it right. I couldn't save them, but I can save the galaxy."

He ground his teeth in frustration. "How would we even put the force field back up? If she's gone after the field's down, who's gonna get to the panel to bring it back up if there's nothing to hold on to?"

Gray pulled something out of his belt and held it up for them to see. It was his sonic screwdriver. "I can't bring the field down from a distance without seeing what I'm doing, but I can issue a general reversal command that will just undo the last function carried out by the system, which in this case would bring the field back up."

Millianna spread her hands out in supplication. "See?"

"Millie," Erza said softly. "Are you sure?"

She nodded resolutely. "Positive. Someone's gotta do it, after all."

"Then we'll buy you the time," said Simon. "And when you've cleared the bay of the Mantises, whoever's left will destroy the R-System."

"Yeah, and how exactly is that gonna happen?" Gray said skeptically. "Are you just gonna take out the batteries, or…?"

Simon met Gray's suspicious eyes briefly, then dropped his gaze. "Don't worry about that—just know that it will be done."

"It's agreed, then?" Erza said.

They nodded, Gray somewhat hesitatingly. "Then prepare yourselves while I brief Millie on what the room looks like." She took her friend aside and started talking.

"Dragneel." Natsu looked over to see Simon watching him. "Could I have a word? In private?" Natsu shrugged. "Sure, what's up?" The two of them retreated a little farther down the hall, away from Erza and the others. Lucy watched curiously as Simon spoke to Natsu in a hushed voice. Natsu listened intently, but then his eyes widened at something and he started to shake his head in protest. Simon then grabbed one of his arms firmly and spoke urgently. At first Natsu kept shaking his head, but then suddenly he looked over straight at Lucy and she could have sworn that it was pain filling his eyes. He faced Simon again and nodded slowly. Simon bowed his head and grasped Natsu's shoulder once before turning away and heading back towards Lucy and the others. Natsu didn't immediately follow but remained in the same spot, gripping his scarf tightly and staring at the floor. Lucy started to head over to him to ask what was wrong, but before she could take more than a couple steps Erza and Millianna finished talking and were addressing the group once more.

"Does everyone understand what is to be done here?" she asked. "Our main objective is clear a path to the bay doors and buy Millianna enough time to open them and deactivate the fore field. Make sure that you're able to hold onto something once they open, otherwise you'll get sucked out too. Once the Mantises are gone, we destroy the R-System. Everyone got that?"

The group chorused their assent. Erza whirled around to face the doors, her scarlet hair flying. "Then open the doors, Fullbuster. We're doing this now."

Gray nodded and rapidly typed in a command on the control pad. The doors clicked and shuddered open once more, revealing the interior of the bay.

The Mantises had already opened the shuttle bay doors to reveal the pale brown, barren terrain of the asteroid the colony was situated on. It stretched out almost endlessly, with only several large protruding rocks to serve as the decoration on a dead, tasteless landscape. And above that, in place of the normal soft colors of a planet's sky, yawned the dreadful darkness that was open space. However, the force field keeping the air in was still intact. There were still plenty of insectoids crawling all over the place; Lucy adjusted the grip on her Mantis spike with sweating hands and prayed that they made it out of this alive somehow.

"Go!" Erza roared, and they ran forwards.

Lucy had expected the renewed battle to be somewhat different, perhaps—maybe less chaotic, easier with her experience and new sense of purpose, but it wasn't. It was the same thing all over again: hack, slash, and try not to die. There wasn't time to do anything else but react. As she thrust her makeshift spear through a Mantis's head and kicked back another, she kept listening for the horrible hissing from before, but it would seem that the Mantises had forgone their fear tactic in favor for more a brutalized fighting style. Before, the Mantises seemed to have had some instinct for self-preservation and had been making attempts to dodge her attacks, but not now. Now, all they appeared to care about was eliminating the threat before them, and everything else, including their own lives, was secondary.

 _Not unlike us,_ Lucy thought as she parried a strike from an oncoming attack and beheaded the creature with a swift stroke. _We're also prioritizing the mission over everything else. Funny how similar our goals are, yet so opposite; fighting's kind of odd like that._

"Get out of the way!" Natsu roared from right behind her. Without pausing to think she flung herself to the side just before he blew a large stream of fire into the crowd of Mantises where she'd been fighting. It was big, but Lucy could tell he was running out of energy. Gray too; his blasts of ice were slowing down significantly and were losing their size as well.

Lucy began to fight her way over to the side of the room, where there were several railings installed in front of several platforms no doubt used for transportation. If she could get there, she would have something to hold on to when the bay doors were opened and she wouldn't be sucked out.

A screaming Mantis that was consumed by searing flames ran by her, heedless of her presence. It collided with two other Mantises and set them aflame as well. Lucy knocked them aside and bolted forwards, reaching the railing. Grabbing the side with her free hand, she vaulted herself over it and slashed at the enemies on her heels, but was extremely careful not to let go. She didn't know when the force field would go down and didn't want to be caught off-guard.

As she was fending off the Mantises that were trying to swarm her on the platform, she saw Arlong in the corner of her eye trying to get to the platform next to her. He almost made it too, but as he was jumping he slipped on the blood of one of the Mantises he had killed and lost his balance. In an instant the Mantises were on him, and before he could even cry out a large dark green Mantis bit down and ripped his head off.

Lucy opened her mouth to scream, but was ripped off her feet by a sudden huge rush of air pulling her back towards the doors of the bay. Fortunately her grip on the railing was strong, and so when the Mantises around her were sucked away wailing, she stayed in place.

They were flying everywhere, limbs flailing wildly and sharp teeth gnashing furiously. The Mantises' forelegs were far too clumsy for them to latch on to anything and so they were yanked away by the furious rushing wind that suctioned them out of the bay into space like dirt in a vacuum. On the other side of her, opposite where Arlong had been killed, she could see Happy frantically clutching a small handle on a box of supplies, but his grip was slipping. With a terrified shriek that she could hardly hear over the roar of the wind, Happy lost his hold and went sailing past her. Without thinking about it, Lucy dropped her weapon and snatched wildly at her passing friend, just managing to catch his tail.

For several terrifying, heart-stopping moments they were suspending like that: Lucy desperately holding onto the railing with one hand while hanging onto Happy by the tail with the other, all the while the fierce wind was pulling them high into the air towards the doors and the open space, tugging at their clothes and Lucy's hair and tossing them about like rag dolls. Finally, the wind stopped and they collapsed on the ground, panting and shaking from the exertion.

"Happy," Lucy gasped, lifting her head. "Are you alright?"

"Lucyyy!" The little cat pounced on her, wrapping his arm around her neck and crying loudly. "You saved me! I thought I was a goner!"

"Consider it thanks for earlier," she said and sat up, looking around. There wasn't a single Mantis to be seen. All the bodies that had littered the floor were also gone, even the ones of their comrades. Everything under the weight of several thousand pounds had been consumed by the rushing wind. But she saw Natsu, Gray, and Erza slowly getting up from the floor and felt a strong surge of relief, followed by a sharp pang of grief—Millianna was nowhere to be seen.

"It worked," Erza said in a wondering tone. "I can't believe it—they're all gone. Millie…" She bowed her head. "You did it."

Gray looked up at the R-System. "Now we just gotta take out this thing." He eyed Simon doubtfully. "And how's that gonna happen, again?"

Simon didn't answer, but directed his gaze at Natsu. "Now, Dragneel. It's time."

Natsu hesitated, and then nodded slowly. "If you're sure."

"I'm sure."

"Alright then." Natsu looked at his crew. "C'mon guys, we're leaving. Now."

"What?" Lucy exclaimed.

"Have you lost your mind?" spluttered Gray. "We're not done here!"

"Yeah, we are," Natsu said, and walked over to Erza. She blinked down uncomprehendingly at his hand around her arm, then slowly looked up at Simon.

"Simon?" she said uncertainly. "What's going on?"

The dark-haired slave's eyes were filled with resignation. "It's not enough to just disable this," he said, gesturing to the R-System looming above them. "There's a whole fleet of Mantises hovering right above us. When they don't hear from their people down here, they'll just come down and investigate. And they'll find a way to make this work, you bet your life they will. No, this needs to be destroyed. Completely."

Erza still didn't seem to understand what was happening. "But…but to do that…"

Simon smiled sadly. "Yes. We have blow it up. Or to be more accurate, _I_ have to blow it up."

Horror dawned alongside comprehension on Erza's face. "No. No, Simon, you can't."

He stepped forwards and took her hands in his. "Why not?" he asked. "Someone has to do it. You said it yourself, this can't be allowed to be used. What's just one life in comparison to all the billions and even trillions that will suffer if I don't?"

"No, it doesn't have to be you—I can do it, I can blow it up—"

"It has to be me."

"But why?" she pleaded. "Why does it have to be you? Why not me?"

"Because you need to live—"

"And you don't?!"

"—you need to live and find Jellal."

Her eyes widened. "Jel—?"

His sad smiled widened. "Yes. Find him. Find Jellal and the others, and tell them what happened to us. Tell them they don't need to worry about us anymore, because we're in a better place."

She was shaking her head hard. "No, I can't do that, everyone's gone, I've lost so much, I can't lose you too, I can't—"

"You can," he insisted firmly. "It will hurt, and it might seem like things won't ever get better, but they will. You'll be alright." He looked at Natsu and the others. "These people will help you."

She kept shaking her head with tears filling her eyes. "No, Simon, please…"

"Just promise me this, alright?"

She swallowed. "Anything."

"Don't forget us. Don't dwell on us so that you can never find joy, but please, don't forget about us. Because as long as you remember us, we'll live on through you."

"Simon…" Erza was crying now, tears streaming down her face and tracking clear paths through the paint of blood on her skin.

He leaned forwards and kissed her softly on her forehead. "Be happy, Erza."

Lucy and Gray stepped forward simultaneously.

"Please don't do this—"

"C'mon man, we'll think of something—"

"Maybe we can just take out the important parts—"

"We could build some explosives—"

Simon shook his head. "We don't have enough time. The rest of the Mantises will be here shortly." He turned to Natsu. "Your ship. The destruction of the thalaron will create a class three shock wave that will wipe out everything in the vicinity of this asteroid, including the Mantis fleet. Can you get out of here fast enough to avoid the blast?"

"If we warp out, yeah," Natsu said.

"Good," said Simon, and glanced at Erza. "Keep her safe, alright?"

Natsu's face hardened with determination. "I'll do my best. And my best tends to be pretty damn good."

Simon smiled again. "Thank you." He took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders. "Now, it's time for you to go."

The four members of the _Adjudicator_ gathered around the weeping Erza.

"Thanks for everything, man," said Gray. "You were incredible."

"We won't forget you," said Happy tremulously.

Lucy could only blink hard as the tears streamed down her face. "Thank you," she whispered.

"I'm sorry we couldn't help," Natsu said.

"We were doomed from the start," said Simon. "At least you can save one of us. You're good people, all of you. I think you'll do a lot for our galaxy. So…I'm glad I got the chance to meet you." He raised his hand. "Farewell."

Natsu raised his hand in return. Then he pulled out the tranporter transmitter that he'd stashed in his belt and pressed it. The world began to shimmer around them, and their last glimpse of Simon was of him staring wistfully at them as they disappeared.

They rematerialized in the transporter room aboard the _Adjudicator._ Immediately, Natsu leaped off the pads and ran for the door.

"We gotta get outta here, move, move, move!"

They ran the length of their long ship back to the bridge, Happy helping Gray along. They raced through the door, and Natsu slid into his seat and began typing furiously. The ship turned around Lucy felt the floor and walls thrum with the vibrations signaling that they were about to enter a warp jump. They looked back at the screen one more time, showing the Tower of Heaven shining brightly on it with the Mantis fleet in orbit.

There was a dazzling flash, and then the asteroid was gone. The shock wave, a thin, shimmering, translucent thing, spread out and destroyed the Mantis ships with a heavy blast. A split second before it hit the _Adjudicator,_ the stars around them elongated and they warped away.

Silence permeated the bridge as they all stared at the empty space in the viewer screen where the Tower of Heaven had been just a moment before. Then Erza sank to her knees and with a ragged noise like that of a wounded animal, began to cry.

* * *

 **They're not out of the woods yet, but they can give her a moment for her grief.**

 **...I hope none of you guys thought this would be a fun, happy adventure story all the way through. Cuz if ya did...welp, this is awkward.**

 **Tell me what you think?**

 **Thanks for reading! See you next time!**


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